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ATONEMENT AND LAW 



ATONEMENT AND LAW 


OR 


REDEMPTION IN HARMONY WITH LAW 
AS REVEALED IN NATURE 


BY 


JOHN M ARMOUR 


“ Nature the Image of Grace ’’—Pascal 

" The world of nature is throughout a witness for the 
'•world of spirit, proceeding from the same hand , 

“ growing out of trie same root , and being constituted 
“ for this very end. The characters of nature which 
everywhere meet the eye are not a common but a 
“ sacred writing— they are the hieroglyphics of God ” 


Archbishop Trench 



PHILADELPHIA 

CHRISTIAN STATESMAN PUBLISHING CO 


1520 CHESTNUT STREET 

1885 


3 ^^ 


Copyright by 
JOHN M ARMOUR 
1885 


Ok Q f yii ( ^ 



PREFACE 


The views presented in this volume have not been 
hastily adopted. They are the result of many years 
of patient and absorbing study. They have, more- 
over, been fully submitted to the judgment of many 
eminent scholars and theologians, and have received 
their unequivocal and hearty approval. While I 
have been led strongly to dissent from certain views 
and statements with which the scriptural doctrine of 
Atonement has been overlaid, that doctrine in its his- 
torical evangelical form will be found to be main- 
tained in these pages. The views here presented indi- 
cate the ground from which the orthodox doctrine of 
the Great Satisfaction must at last be defended. 

That the Great Redemption was wrought out in per- 
fect accordance with law as revealed in Nature and in 
Providence; that it was no departure from the divinely 
ordained order in the administration of law ; that it 


VI 


PREFACE 


was merely the highest exemplification of principles 
recognized everywhere throughout the Divine govern- 
ment, are conclusions toward which Christian thought 
has been tending in all the ages past. The earnestness 
and the hopefulness with which the greatest and 
most devout minds have ever reached out towards this 
result may be seen in such passages as the following : 

“ Though something of Christ be unfolded in one 
“ age and something in another, yet eternity itself can- 
“ not fully unfold him. 1 1 see something,’ said Luther, 
“ 1 which blessed Augustine saw not, and those that 
“ come after me will see that which I see not.’ It is in 
“ the studying of Christ as in the planting of a new- 
“ discovered country ; at first men sit down by the sea- 
“ side upon the skirts and borders of the land, and there 
“ they dwell ; but by degrees they search farther and 
“ farther into the heart of the country. Ah, the best 
“ are yet but upon the borders of this vast continent.”* 

“The parable, or other analogy to spiritual truth ap- 
“ propriated from the woild of nature or man, is not 
“ merely illustration, but also in some sort proof. It is 
“not merely that these analogies assist to make the 
“ truth intelligible, or, if intelligible before, present it 
“ more vividly to the mind, which is all that some will 


*Flavel. 


PREFACE 


VII 


“ allow tliem. Their power lies deeper than this, in the 
“harmony unconsciously felt by all men, and by deeper 
“ minds continually recognized and plainly perceived, 
“ between the natural and spiritual worlds, so that anal- 
“ ogies from the first are felt to be something more than 
“illustrations, happily but yet arbitrarily chosen. 
“ They are arguments, and may be alleged as witnesses. 

“For it is a great misunderstanding of the matter to 
“ think of these as happily, but yet arbitrarily, chosen 
“ illustrations, taken with a skilful selection from the 
“ great stock and storehouse of unappropriated images ; 
“ from whence it would have been possible that the 
“same skill might have selected others as good or nearly 
“ as good. Bather they belong to one another, the type 
“ and the thing typified, by an inward necessity ; they 
“ were linked together long before by the law of a se- 
“ cret affinity. 

“ Besides his revelation in words, God has another 
“ and an elder, and one indeed without which it is in- 
“ conceivable how that other could be made, for from 
“this it appropriates all its signs of communication. 
“ This entire moral and visible world from first to last, 
“with its kings and its subjects, its parents and its chil- 
“ dren, its sun and its moon, its sowing and its harvest, 
“its light and its darkness,- its sleeping and its waking, 
“ its birth and its death, is from beginning to end a 


VIII 


PREFACE 


“ mighty parable, a great teaching of supersensuous 
“ truth, a help at once to our faith and to our under- 
“ standing.”* 

“ Miracles are not to be considered as against nature 
“ in any other sense than that in which ‘ one natural 
“ agent may be against another — as water may coun- 
“ teract fire.’ ”f 

“ Any expedient for the salvation of man which im- 
“ plies a violation of justice, or a relaxation of it, or 
“ the modification of it by any other attribute, or the 
“reversal of any of its judgments, is necessarily false 
“ and incompetent. 

“ The principle of compensatory satisfaction or 
“ atonement underlies and pervades the whole system of 
“human association, and is indispensable to its order if 
“ there is to be mercy extended to offenders. 

“ The person of the Mediator is the sole new ele- 
“ment introduced. 

“There is nothing new, nothing abnormal, in the 
“ principles of the Great Atonement.”:): 


♦Archbishop Trench. fDr. McCosh, quoted by the Duke of Argyle. 
^Representative Responsibility, Rev. Henry Wallace. 


CONTENTS, 


INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

“ THE GREAT EXCEPTION.” 

The scientific objection to the prevalent theory of Redemption. 
The real question at issue : Is Redemption the Great Excep- 
tion ? Recognized analogies and correspondences. — Scripture 
Emblems. — False theories of Atonement fore-doomed. — No 
relaxation of Law in accepting the Satisfaction of Christ. — 
Sovereignty in Redemption as in Creation. — The Miracle of 
Redemption, like all Miracles, by Intervention of adequate 
Power, not by Suspension of Law. . . . Page 15 


PART I. 

LAW, MORAL AND NATURAL. 

CHAPTER I. 

MOTION, FORCE AND LIFE. 

Relation of Natural and Moral Law to the Lawgiver. — Motion 
as exemplifying Natural law. — Motion essential to our knowl- 
edge of Space and Duration. — All Motion traceable to Force, 
all Force to Life. — Motion, Force and Life in the Vegetable 
Kingdom. — Observable Motion in Plant Life. — The Modern 


X 


CONTENTS 


Microscope. — Motion in the vital seed. — Motion in and by vital 
Organisms in the Animal Kingdom. — Vast aggregate of Mo- 
tion directly traceable to vital force. — The Motion traceable 
to vital force of hand and brain. — The Arrow. — The Ocean 
Steamer. — Motion of Heavenly Bodies in Space. — The Meas- 
ure of Duration. — Motion proof of the Universality of Law. — 
Direct proof of the Ever-present Lawgiver. ... 33 

CHAPTER II. 

THE LATEST IDOL “ THE NATURE OF THINGS." 

Space and Duration. — Axioms in the realms of Law Moral and 
Natural. — Their relation to the Self-existent Lawgiver. . 47 

CHAPTER III. 

THE NATURE OF MORAL LAW. 

Law never for an instant separated from God. — Law as Force 
and Law as Commandment. — Moral Law the Will of God in 
Commandment. — Cannot be implanted within, but must be 
made known unto moral beings. — God alone is law to Him- 
self. — The One Great Mistake of our race. — Christ obeyed 
Commandment, not the promptings of his sinless humanity. — 
Conscience, its relation to Law. — Confirmation by the One 
Divine Subject of Law. — All in Heaven and in Earth to be gath- 
ered unto Him. — Surrender of the Will a necessity. — Christ’s 
surrender not anomalous, but the Great Example. 68 

CHAPTER IY. 

THE WILL. 

The Source and the Subject of Law. — Necessarily Self-assert- 
ing. — Testimony of all History. — Voice of Consciousness. — 
The God-like in man renders him capable of serving God. — 


CONTENTS 


XI 


Every Subject of Law also a Source of Law. — The Image of 
the Divine Sovereignty.— The Desire, PI ope and Promise of 
Dominion. — Dominion the Reward of Obedience. — The Will 
free from Invasion. — Responsible to God alone. — The Will, 
most Completely Surrendered to God, left in Utmost Freedom 
and Honor. 87 


PART II. 

ATONEMENT. 

CHAPTER I. 

NO SALVATION WITHOUT ATONEMENT. 

The assumption that Moral Law, unlike Natural, maybe relaxed. 
— The non-execution of Deserved Penalty cannot ensure 
bliss. — Cannot ensure exemption from Limitless Evil. — Con- 
science Satisfied only when Law is Satisfied. — Conscience in- 
destructible. — The same Atonement, Demanded by Law, De- 
manded by Conscience. 107 

CHAPTER II. 

NO ATONEMENT BY THE VIOLATOR OF LAW. 

One violation of Law renders Unrighteous. — Law requires 
Righteousness of Character. — Obligations of Law Continuous. 
Law requires of every subject of Law the utmost he can ren- 
der. — Law is Mandatory as regards payment of penalty. — 
Voluntariness required in enduring the penalty, as well as in 
obeying the precept. — Law in its entireness Commandment. — 
Atonement by the Violator of Law a mere “ Castle in the 
Air.” 115 


CONTENTS 


XII 


CHAPTER III. 

SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW. 

Section First . — Obligation of Law always upon the person. 

Section Second . — Imputation of Legal Obligation and of Legal 
Righteousness. 

Section Third . — Satisfaction of Law. 

Section Fourth . — Equivalent Penalty. 

Section Fifth . — “Sovereign Prerogative,” “Dispensing Power,” 
“ Relaxation of Law,” 

Section Stxth . — The Essential Conditions of True and Proper 
Suretyship or Substitution. . . 127 

CHAPTER IY. 

SUBSTITUTION OBEDIENCE TO LAW. 

The Law of Helpfulness. — It extends to all subjects of Law. — 
No limit but that of the ability of the helper and the need of 
the helpless. — The element of substitution in all charitable 
works. — “ I was eyes to the blind, feet was I to the lame.” — 
Christ simply obeyed Law. — The result was Redemption. — 
“ Great-heart ” explains “ to Christiana, Mercy and the rest.” — 
No super-legal charity. — Room for highest virtue under Law. — 
The resources of Law revealed in Christ’s work. — The pyra- 
mid of virtue completed. — Heaven and Earth rejoice. . 203 

CHAPTER Y. 

INTERVENTION. 

All danger or evil from Yiolated Law. — No escape or deliverance 
by suspension or relaxation of law or mitigation of its penalty. 
— Deliverance only by intervention of adequate power. — The 
kind of intervention determined by the kind and extent of the 


COTNENTS 


XIII 


daDger. — These truths illustrated and confirmed in nature and 
in the history of mankind. — Falling stones and rubbish. — “ The 
shorn lamb.” — The serpent. — The Corliss Engine. — Revolving 
Wheels. — Tbe generator of electric light. — The Monarch of 
Babylon. — The Reign of Law and the Reign of Grace. — The 
last appeal to Jerusalem. — Salvation by Atonement excludes 
boasting. — The infinite debt of gratitude. — “ The Gospel of 
Christ the power of God.” — Miracles intervention of adequate 
power. — Unity of plan to be assumed. — Evidence accumulat- 
ing continually. — Sun of Righteousness more and more fully 
revealed from age to age 215 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 

THE GREAT EXCEPTION 

Redemption has been almost universally regarded as 
“ The Great Exception.” As such it has been attacked, 
and as such defended, for the most part, in the cen- 
turies past. 

With undisguised contempt, the scientist, and with ex- 
treme suspicion, the Christian, have regarded all the 
manifold and varied attempts in late years, to reconcile 
the teachings of science with the accepted doctrines and 
theories of Redemption. Neither the contempt nor the 
suspicion was wholly deserved. Something has been 
done in the way of showing how many of the cardi- 
nal doctrines of Redemption are in beautiful harmony 
with all that is taught in Nature. Nearly all the great 
teachers in the Christian church, in all ages, have recog- 
nized, more or less clearly, this harmony, yet their de- 
liverances, as a matter of fact, have never taken hold of 
the mass of the Christian people, nor even of Christian 


16 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


theologians. The numerous and varied presentations 
of the harmony between the natural and the spiritual 
world, whether the fragmentary utterances of the great 
Christian teachers in all the centuries past, or the more 
direct efforts of distinguished authors in later times, 
have been accepted by Christian people with a certain 
degree of interest, and even delight, but they can not be 
said to have been accepted for their full value — rather 
always at a ruinous discount. At no period of the 
Christian era have there been so many reasons for giv- 
ing careful and candid consideration to any view which 
tends to bring “religion within the sphere of law,” 
or in other words, to show that theology — the theology 
of Scripture — is not only in accord with all true science, 
but is itself the science which rises above, and, in a cer- 
tain sense, includes all others. 

The war between science and religion can not be in- 
definitely prolonged. Nor can it be a drawn battle. 
The centuries of conflict that went before were but pre- 
paratory to the conflict of the nineteenth century. 
In the estimation of many, it may seem that no de- 
cisive issue shall be reached. But so it is in all battles. 
At W aterloo or at Gettysburg how many of the com- 
batants could know more than that there was terrible 
fighting and terrible carnage ? Conflict of thought, of 
doctrine, or of belief, is brought on by the necessities 
of the case. Its issue, also, it is difficult to forecast. 
It also can not be prolonged indefinitely, or terminated 
without decisive victory on the one side and utter de- 
feat on the other. Since the world began, no conflict rose 


THE GREAT EXCEPTION 


17 


ever to such height, extended so widely, enlisted so many 
of mankind, or had involved in it so much that con- 
cerns the individual, the family, the race of mankind, 
so deeply, not merely for this life, hut for the life to 
come. 

The question is one that includes in it all that is 
worth contending for in this world. It is none other 
than this : Has God provided and revealed to man an 
effectual, a perfectly credible, way by which conscious 
violators of law may be restored to righteousness and 
blessedness ? The form which this question has most 
assuredly assumed in late years is this : Is the scheme 
of redemption in harmony with what we learn and ob- 
serve in nature ? If it be not, if its advocates admit or 
assert at the outset that it is not, the world of science 
now — whatever it may have done in the past — will not 
even listen to the evidence in its favor. All this is 
summed up in the pregnant and defiant utterance, “Sci- 
ence will hear nothing of a Great Exception.” 

This attitude of unbelief some years past caused no 
little alarm and consternation in the ranks of the faith- 
ful. This challenge, like that made by him of Gath, 
caused the hosts of Israel to waver and retire. But 
like that challenge of old, it in the end but opens the 
way to complete victory. Every assault upon the 
Christian faith, since the dawn of the Christian era, 
has resulted in the better establishment, because in the 
better understanding, of the doctrine assailed. One by 
one the great doctrines of Christianity have been as- 
sailed and defended, always with the same result, 

2 


18 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


Instead of attacking the doctrines of redemption in 
detail, as in the days of Athanasius and onward, the 
enemy now attacks the scheme of Eedemption as a 
whole, charging that it is not merely wanting in suffi- 
cient evidence, but that, being severed from the teach- 
ings of nature, being professedly “ The Great Excep- 
tion,” it is incredible as such. 

Year by year the wiser and braver defenders of the 
Christian faith have been more and more prepared to 
accept the issue made by the enemy. Already it is ap- 
parent to all who comprehend the real nature of the 
conflict that it must be decided on this issue and on 
this alone. If the scheme of Eedemption taught in 
Scripture be, as nearly all the great Christian teachers 
in all ages have believed it to be, foreshadowed and 
typified in nature and in providence, this fact can not 
but be more and more clearly brought into view, un- 
less, indeed, it be so that no progress is to be made in 
the study of Nature, Providence or Scripture. 

As scientific inquirers ever assume that every part of 
a vital organism is placed there for a purpose, and for 
a purpose not only beneficent but connected with the 
perfection of the entire organism, and this even 
when they are wholly ignorant of its specific pur- 
pose and its real relation to the whole ; so we ought 
to assume that everything in the economy of Nature 
and Providence is connected with that all-embracing 
plan of which Eedemption is the great consummation, 
and this even while we are, as yet, unable to trace that 
connection. In fact, the discovery of the unity of plan 


THE GREAT EXCEPTION 


19 


in all tlie works and ways of God is tlie lesson set 
before the race of mankind, a lesson not to be fully 
learned even when the last trumpet shall sound, but 
one to be taken up anew, and under vastly more favor- 
able conditions, in the life to come. 

One of the greatest obstacles to the immediate and 
complete defense of Christianity against the assaults of 
the enemy is the deep and almost universal prejudice 
against any and all attempts to reconcile religion and 
science. It would be too much to say that these at- 
tempts have been wholly useless. It is not too much 
to say that they have neither satisfied the Christian 
world nor disturbed the non- Christian. The cannon- 
ade all along the fine has been treated rather as mock 
than real battle. 

If it be asked why have well-meaning and able 
Christian Apologists been thus treated and regarded 
almost alike by friend and foe, I venture to affirm 
that the reason has been that the strategic vantage- 
ground from which Christianity is to make her defense 
and to win her grandest victories has not yet been seiz- 
ed by the Christian hosts, in fact has but been indica- 
ted by a few of the most courageous of the acknowl- 
edged leaders of Christian thought. 

It will not do to close our eyes to the terrible “ de- 
cadence of religion in the world of science.” If the 
doctrine of Redemption, as set forth in Scripture, can 
not be vindicated as in harmony, in beautiful and ex- 
act harmony, with all that we discover in Nature and 
in Providence, we shall not soon witness any arrest of 


20 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


that decadence. Redemption is, and Redemption will 
yet be clearly shown to be, not the Great Exception, 
but the grand exemplification of a manifestly pre-de- 
termined plan, foreshadowed in Creation even from the 
first. 

There has been, indeed, abundant discussion of analo- 
gies and of surprising correspondences. These have been 
presented, however, as beautiful curiosities. They have 
never been seriously or profoundly studied, either by 
the skeptical or the believing world, for after making 
the most of these resemblances and analogies from Na- 
ture, Christian Apologists have generally, in the face 
of the enemy, admitted that Revealed Religion is, in its 
main features, “ the Great Exception,” (revelation it- 
self an exception — the fall of our race an exception- 
Redemption by intervention and by substitution an ex- 
ception, that is, not provided for in the Nature of law;) 
yet an exception not such that it is wholly in- 
credible, for in Nature behold this or that which faint- 
ly resembles it, or is “ somewhat analogous,” or is on 
“ analogous principles I” 

There are mighty arguments in favor of a bolder 
course. The attack of the enemy will constrain the 
Christian hosts to seek firmer ground. 

The charge that the revealed way of salvation is 
manifestly out of harmony with Nature, if it result in 
bringing to light, as never before, that perfect harmony, 
will be but another exemplification of the way in which 
the trial always leads to the triumph of faith. 

It is safe to assume that what God purposed from 


THE GREAT EXCEPTION 


21 


eternity as tlie chief manifestation of his infinite per- 
fections was foreshadowed in all his works and ways. 
Indeed, it is incredible that God’s utmost manifesta- 
tion of His perfections in Redemption should be one 
to the evidence and illustration and support of which 
the universe itself, rightly interpreted, would not ulti- 
mately come. 

The Bible in its vast range of emblems and para- 
ble, teaches not merely faint resemblances, to be re- 
garded as mere illustrations. The wealth of meaning 
in the abounding emblems of Scripture has by no 
means been exhausted. The time has come for a more 
profound and reverent study of that vast range of em- 
blems from Nature to which Scripture on every page 
refers us. If we imagine we can grasp the spiritual 
truth, and turn away regardless of the emblem in which 
God sets it before us in His W ord, we dishonor alike 
the voice of God in Scripture and in Nature. If when 
God tells us, “ A man shall be as the shadow of a great 
rock in a weary land,” we answer. “Yes, we know that 
Christ protects us from all evil,” we have learned but 
part of the lesson this emblem was designed to teach. 
If we add to this our own theory that Christ protects 
us, not by meeting and enduring “ the actual execution 
in strict rigour of justice of the unrelaxed penalty of the 
law,” but by meeting and enduring that which, “ al- 
though it did not thoroughly discharge the obligation” 
and might for that reason have been refused, was 
graciously accepted, was “regarded as a satisfaction” — 
we reject part of the lesson taught in this emblem. No 


22 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


sovereign act of Dispensing Power was pnt forth that 
the great rock might protect those who took refuge 
under its shadow. Nor was any leniency (Turrettine’s 
Epieikeia) shown, but the sun’s fiercest rays fell sheer 
upon the massive rock. 

The Bible more than any other book in the world 
appeals to Nature with boundless confidence. The pro- 
per study of Nature is quite as necessary to the proper 
understanding of the Bible as is the study of the Bible 
to the proper interpretation of Nature. 

The volume I now submit to the judgment of the en- 
lightened world, is the result of many years of deeply 
interesting study, during which I have been led on with 
ever increasing wonder and delight in the discovery of 
the beautiful harmony between God’s plan revealed in 
Scripture and in all Nature. I have endeavored to 
trace this harmony in these pages in outline, deeply 
impressed with the fact that a subject so vast and so 
overpowering could not be fully treated in a life-time — 
conscious of utter inability to do more than indicate 
those trains of thought into which I was led with 
boundless delight year after year. In all these studies 
I have ever returned to the inspired word, to find 
with surprise and delight that conclusions reached on 
independent lines, and often by long and circuitous 
trains of reasoning, were clearly and distinctly set 
forth in most familiar texts of Scripture. 

The series of propositions which I was led to adopt, 
with the arguments in support of them, were all ar- 
ranged without any view to the support of a pre-con- 


THE GREAT EXCEPTION 


23 


ceived theory of Redemption, but * simply because the 
study of each special topic led me to accept, as the very 
truth, the proposition itself. In fact, it was equal 
surprise and satisfaction to discover that every one of 
them did come directly to the support of the general 
proposition: Redemption not the Great Exception, but 
the supreme, final and most glorious exemplification of 
a plan which was in the mind of God from eternity, and 
is indicated, foreshadowed and exemplified in Nature 
and in Providence. 

What I maintain in this treatise, while there is a 
phase of it that is new, is, taken as a whole, not only 
old but the logical support of the old. The doctrine, 
“ Christ did make a proper, real and full satisfaction,” 
needs for its support the doctrine, Substitution a nor- 
mal provision of Law ; so that what, in a sense, is new 
comes to the support of the old — fits into it closely as 
nothing else does or can. 

The perfection of Christ’s Atonement has been very 
imperfectly apprehended, even by the millions glorying 
in the Christian name. Half- awakened, and but emerg- 
ing from the long night that for so many centuries 
brooded over our world, they as yet see it, for the most 
part, as in the twilight or under a cloud. It will not 
always be so. New phases of the excellent glory, the 
divine perfection, of The Great Atonement will be 
made to shine forth. False theories, like a heavy vail, 
have too long hidden from view its exquisite finish, its 
goodly proportions. But God’s time will come for the 
unvailing of “ Christ’s Finished Work ” before the eyes 


24 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


of all men. False theories have prevailed in Theology, 
but not a whit more than in other sciences. False theo- 
ries in Theology, as in other sciences, must sooner or 
later come to grief. Theories of the Atonement con- 
structed in defiance alike of Scriptural Truth and Na- 
tural Law, are fore-doomed. For Scripture and Na- 
ture are the upper and the nether mill-stones, prepar- 
ed of God to grind them to powder. Nature, no more 
than Scripture, knows anything of Atonement that 
does not satisfy law. 

The satisfaction theory of the Atonement is the only 
theory that can survive. Its survival is assured on the 
same grounds as the survival of Harvey’s theory of the 
circulation of the blood. It will survive not by com- 
promise but by victory. The satisfaction theory of the 
Atonement, or the doctrine that “ Christ did make a 
proper, real and full satisfaction,” can be maintained 
only on the ground that substitution is provided for in 
the very nature of law. From any lower ground the 
Great Atonement must necessarily appear with more 
or less of penumbra resting upon it. Even the ablest 
theologians among the orthodox, if they assume that 
there was a “ relaxation of the law,”* “ a high act of 
sovereign dispensing power, dispensing in some respect 
with the law,”f “ an exercise of sovereign prerogative 
substituting person for person in order that Christ 
might make atonement for us, may call Christ’s atone- 
ment perfect ; may write “ De Satisfaction Christi 


*Tur retine. 


fSymington. 


I Hodge. 


THE GREAT EXCEPTION 


25 


but they do not, for they can not, believe that Christ’s 
work in our behalf “did thoroughly discharge the ob- 
ligation.” That is, they do not maintain but surrend- 
er the doctrine of Satisfaction. For Christ’s work was 
not a satisfaction unless it was such that law, without 
“relaxation,” law in strict rigour of justice, could ac- 
cept it. 

The work of redemption was the result of the com- 
ing under law of one who was able to meet its full de- 
mands. Redemption is the highest instance of the one 
only way of deliverance from danger or evil threaten- 
ing those who are violators of law, viz : Interven- 
tion of adequate power — the one only way taught in 
Scripture, in Nature and in Providence. When I 
maintain that the work of Redemption is carried for- 
ward under law, and in perfect accordance with law, I 
hasten to add that as to its origin, it is of the mere 
sovereignty of God. But even in this respect it is 
not The Exception, for sovereignty characterizes all 
beginnings. 

Creation could be nothing else than a sovereign act. 
To deny sovereignty here, would be to deny sover- 
eignty altogether ; for, if the created universe came in- 
to being, and is what it is, as a necessary consequence 
of the existence of a first cause, that first cause could 
not be a person, could not be endowed with freedom 
of will, could not be God. Besides, if the existence of 
the first cause necessitated the existence of the universe 
it must have done so from eternity. There could have 
been no beginning of the created universe. 


26 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


Redemption, as well as creation, must also be a 
purely sovereign determination of the divine will. 
This is required by the necessities of the case, as well 
as plainly declared in Scripture. No doctrine of Re- 
demption that in any way casts the slightest shadow 
over the high mountain of Divine Sovereignty can be 
tolerated for a moment. All theologies that in any 
manner teach or imply that there was any obligation 
upon God to do this or that for fallen, rebellious sub- 
jects of law, are unscriptural, unreasonable, if not blas- 
phemous. Divine sovereignty is to be recognized in 
determining to save any fallen ones, in determining 
who should be saved, in “ choosing,” “ raising up ” and 
“ delivering up ” the Saviour, and in the Saviour’s giv- 
ing of himself; but this Sovereign Redemption once 
determined, was wrought out under law and in exact 
accordance with law. God honored his own law in 
that this his supreme work was performed by 11 his own 
son " in the capacity of a 11 servant" and “ under law." 
Sovereignty consisted in determining to save, and in 
providing a Saviour. The Saviour once provided, and 
having freely come under law, thenceforward all was 
done in obedience to law. All that was needed for our 
Redemption the law itself then required of him who 
became our surety and who was under law and was 
“ mighty to save.” 

It is here that divine sovereignty shines forth most 
gloriously, for here it is in its own proper sphere. To 
regard sovereignty as occupying this sphere alone, is 
not to limit but to assign to it utmost freedom. This 


THE GREAT EXCEPTION 


27 


is the region in which no limit can he found. Every 
effort men have made to free themselves from the diffi- 
culties that, in the nature of the case, cluster around 
sovereignty in its own glorious sphere above law, do 
but bring them, in the end, to vastly greater difficul- 
ties. For, denying sovereignty in its own sphere, they 
are, for that reason, brought face to face with it, in a 
region and under conditions a thousand fold more per- 
plexing than those which cluster around it in its own 
glorious height about the throne of Him who is “ Higher 
than the highest.” 

“God provided a Saviour for all men; no sovereign 
choice of part of our race ; God gave Christ to die, 
and Christ died, alike for all men.” Ah! Here is 
smooth sailing. Lo ! At one stroke of a very small 
magic wand, that largest and most awful yet most 
glorious storm-cloud that eye of man or angel ever be- 
held — one side of it radiant with the glory of the divine 
“ goodness,” the other dark unutterably with the terri- 
bleness of the divine “ severity — ” is swept away 
and the sky of the upper heaven, about the throne of 
God, is azure without a cloud ! 

“ISTo sovereign choice!” Ah ! What do we meet? 
Sovereignty, actually determining some to life and 
some to destruction, and this after all had been alike 
embraced in one glorious purpose of love ; nay, had 
been redeemed by the same precious blood ! 

The clouds in our own skies may at times be dark, 
terrible and awe-inspiring, even as God intended them 
to be, but they are both beneficent and glorious. Nor 


28 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


does their glory or grandeur ever change into gloom, 
except as by some disturbance of the order of nature 
they come down upon us in mere mist and fog. They 
are specially glorious when high above us, or distant 
in the horizon, in the morning or evening of our little 
day. In like manner the more glorious clouds, in that 
broader and higher sky that over-arches the created 
universe, are terrible exceedingly, even as God de- 
signed they should be, but they also are both benefi- 
cent and glorious. From out these clouds blessing and 
cursing do assuredly proceed, for Nature, no more than 
Scripture, knows anything of a God who is mighty to 
save but not to destroy. Here also, as we look either 
upon the “morning” or the “ evening,” these clouds 
appear in utmost splendor, so that loyal hearts are 
“ not afraid with any amazement.” 

If the Christian world must at length abandon the 
long cherished belief that miracles involve the suspen- 
sion of law, it will be because they will accept the 
higher faith that, law coming from infinite wisdom, 
there could be no need for its suspension — the higher 
faith that all miracles were wrought in a way that hon- 
ored law.* This is, on many grounds, altogether credi- 
ble, but specially in view of the fact that the One 

*1 have lately, with much satisfaction, lighted upon numerous 
emphatic declarations of eminent Christian authors presenting the 
same view respecting miracles which is maintained throughout this 
treatise. The defence of miracles has confessedly been less satisfac- 
tory than that of almost any other tenet ot the Christian world. I 
have no hesitation in saying that the reason ot this is, that the de- 
fence was conducted upon an unscriptural and unreasonable theory 
of miracles. Suspension of law would be confession of its inada- 
quacy. Miracles by Intervention of adequate power leave law in 
utmost honor and freedom, while the Intervention itself reveals the 
wondrous resources of law. 


THE GREAT EXCEPTION 


29 


Miracle which rises infinitely above all others, the 
Miracle of Redemption itself, was one which, in its very 
nature, honored law, in that it, in no respect, interfered 
with its onward movement. If the miracle of our Re- 
demption involved no suspension of law, nay, if it was 
necessary just because law could not be suspended, 
shall we hesitate to believe that all the miracles 
wrought in attestation of it, were wrought with like 
regard to the sacredness and inviolability of law. 

The work of Redemption as well as the course of 
Nature proceeds in accordance with a pre-determined 
plan, and under absolute and invariable law, law quite 
as exact as that which governs the material universe. 
Every end contemplated by the divine mind in the 
realm of the spiritual, and all the means for its attain- 
ment under the reign of absolute law, were determined, 
with infinite exactness, from the beginning. 








PART I 


LAW, 

MORAL AND NATURAL 
























CHAPTER I 


MOTION, FORCE AND LIFE 

Law has its origin in the nature of God. This is 
true of Natural as well as of Moral Law, for they are 
not separated, they are not separable ; they do not 
merely co-operate, nor is it the whole truth to say that 
they become one — they are one in awful onward move- 
ment in the universe. The forces of Nature do always 
“ work together for good” to every loyal subject of law, 
while they are all arrayed against every transgressor 
whether of moral or of natural law ; for the forces of the 
natural and of the moral world do of necessity proceed 
from the same will, and are directed to the same ends* 
To any just conception of Atonement, either as to its 
nature or its necessity, it is essential that we have clear 
and correct views of the origin and nature of law both 
moral and natural. It is especially important that we 
recognize the intimate and necessary relation which 
law sustains to the Lawgiver. The discussion of the 
origin and nature of law, in this and following chapters, 
is designed to be directly preparatory to a proper con- 
ception of that one supreme instance and exemplifica- 
tion of atonement — justly called The Atonement — - 
3 


34 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


as it is revealed in Scripture, provided for in the very 
nature of Law, illustrated, foreshadowed, exemplified in 
that wondrous range of emblems which God designedly 
furnished for this end, and to which he in his holy 
word ever refers us. 

Natural law is but the name we have given to the 
observed uniform method of the acting of the Supreme 
Power, whether acting directly, or, by means of any 
series of second causes however extended. When in 
common language we speak of any result as produced 
by the operation of natural law, we can mean nothing 
else than the acting of some pow£r or being, according 
to an established and uniform method. 

I desire in this chapter to set forth the true rela- 
tion of natural law to the one Lawgiver. It will 
readily be admitted that motion in the universe 
furnishes at once the grandest, most universal, and 
most readily apprehended exemplification of natu- 
ral law. Any satisfactory view of the relation which 
Motion sustains to Force and Life would go far to 
establish a general principle in regard to the true na- 
ture and origin of what we call Natural Law. 

Motion essential to our knowledge of Space and 
Duration. 

Our knowledge of space is due, not merely to the ex- 
tension of objects in space, but to motion. The ex- 
ercise of the senses, without motion of any kind, if that 
were possible — which it is not — could not give us the 
knowledge of space. 


MOTION, FORCE AND LIFE 35 

But Motion, which is essential to our knowledge of 
Space, is to man, and probably to all finite beings, the 
chief, if not the sole reliable and accurate measure of 
Duration. The universe of material orbs in space, 
whatever else it be, is assuredly a grand, and every way 
perfect time-piece. That this was one of the ends 
designed of God we are expressly informed in Scrip- 
ture : “ And God said, let there be lights in the firma- 
ment of heaven to divide the day from the night ; and 
let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and 
years.” Some arrangement, for the accurate measure- 
ment of time, was of the utmost importance. How 
marvelously the arrangement actually made serves the 
end for which it was designed, all may readily see * 
Nor do we at all appreciate it, if we regard it merely, 
or mainly, with reference to the wants of man in this 
life. It is for all time and for all worlds. 

As we contemplate the wondrous movement of 
bodies in the solar system, measuring time for us with 
absolute exactness, and as we rise to the conception of 
the harmonious motion of all bodies in space measur- 
ing duration for all created beings, we can not but be 
actuated with an intense desire to know the cause of 
this wondrous motion. But the question, what is 
the cause of the motion of the heavenly bodies in 

*Tlie very accuracy and perfection of the grand time-piece pro- 
vided for us, and the readiness with which all can refer to it, owing 
to inexcusable insensibility and shameful ingratitude and perversity, 
may be made the reason for regarding it, if not with indifference, at 
least with less admiration than is due. In fact, many of the divine 
arrangements for man’s well-being are almost wholly overlooked, 
simply because they serve so admirably and uninteruptedly the 
beneficent ends for whioh they were designed. 


36 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


space, naturally resolves itself into the more general 
question: What is the cause of all motion?* For it is 
not to be assumed that there can be more than one 
cause or origin of motion. To this question, the ready 
answer, the only answer, is Force. To this, universal 
assent will at once be given. But this answer simply 
raises the real question: What is the origin of Force f 

Careful study of this question, careful attention to 
what has been thought and recorded by the world’s 
greatest teachers in the centuries past, but especially to 
whatever in the ever-widening field of the known 
phenomena of Nature in any way bears upon this 
subject, can not fail to lead to the profound conviction 
that all Force is traceable to Life. Pursuing certain 
lines of thought and investigation, it is practicable to 
be quite as fully assured of this as we are that all 
Motion is traceable to Force. 

All Motion traceable to Force — All Force to Life. 

1. In the entire vegetable kingdom we have perpetual 
demonstration of the intimate and necessary relations 
of Motion, Force and Life. Even the least instructed, 
who have no conception of the real activity or of the 
observable motion in all growing plants, can not but 
know that the great grain crops are “ elevated,” first of 
all, in the fields and solely by vital power : “ first the 
blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear 

♦Even a child can not look upon any moving object without in- 
stinctively inquiring into and searching for the cause of its motion. 
And it is worthy of remark that the child never entertains the no- 
tion that any visible thing moves of itself, but always assumes that 
the real cause of motion is some invisible power. 


MOTION, FOECE AND LIFE 


37 


can not but know also that tbe mighty forests are 
built up by vital force operating tirelessly century 
after century ; can not but know that the whole world 
is covered over with the countless, varied and marvel- 
ous products and proofs of the mysterious, universally 
recognized, but invisible vital power. But only those 
who have patiently and perseveringly gazed into that 
limitless world into which the microscope is the only 
door, and have witnessed the amazing activity of vital 
force in plant life, can have any idea of the manner in 
which the entire vegetable kingdom testifies of the in- 
timate relations of Motion, Force and Life. The limit 
of observable motion, even when that limit has been 
extended to the utmost by means of the marvelous 
power of the modern microscope, it must be remem- 
bered, is but the visible horizon and not the “end of 
the world.” 

Let any one spend but a few hours in watching the 
rapid and incessant motion in a small leaf* under one 
of the best microscopes art has been able to furnish, 
the field being less than the ten thousandth part of an 
inch. In that small field can be distinctly seen twelve 
rows of cells with an average of five cells in each row, 
or sixty cells in all. The currents can be seen flowing 
rapidly along their appropriate channels, like rivers 
with broken ice on the surface, while in each of the 
sixty oblong cells the fluids are seen circulating like 
eddies or whirl-pools in a rushing stream. The area 


*Such as that of the Anacharis Alsimastrum. 


38 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


of each of the sixty cells is, of course, but the six hun- 
dred thousandth part of an inch. But for the perfec- 
tion which microscopic art has attained — attained only 
in late years — this amazing activity would never have 
been suspected, would never have been credited. Wit- 
nessing this activity in the ten thousandth part of an 
inch of the surface of a small leaf plucked from the 
stem, what would be the impression upon the mind, 
could we look upon a single tree, or even a small 
plant, discerning the activity of vital force in every 
part of it with the same degree of clearness ? While 
we can not do this, we can, unless imagination has 
ceased to serve the purpose for which it was given us, 
transfer whatever we have seen in the leaf under the 
microscope to all the leaves of the forest, to all vege- 
tation on the globe ; for in every cell of every living 
plant there is substantially the same vital activity. 
Whether we look upon forest or field the eye of the 
mind should discern, not merely motionless forms of 
life, but everywhere intensely active vital power. 
Were we capable of seeing the real activity of the 
vital force in a living tree, it would be to us scarcely 
less wonderful than the “great sight” which Moses 
turned aside to see ; nor could it fail to produce in us 
a sense of the divine presence not unlike that which 
he experienced. This vital action, which man and all 
created intelligences must ever strive to behold, and 
may ever more and more clearly discover, God him- 
self alone sees as it is. 

But we might begin farther back, with that motion, 


MOTION, FORCE AND LIFE 


89 


or vital activity, which is in the seed itself. It is now 
accepted by the foremost students of plant life, that in 
the vital seed, whether an acorn, a grain of wheat or 
some tiny seed scarcely to be seen without the aid of 
the microscope, there is perpetual activity, the vital 
force keeping up continuous motion, and that the ces- 
sation of this vital force, and consequent activity, in 
any seed, is the cessation of life. Any one whose im- 
agination is not stricken with paralysis can readily 
perceive how this bears upon the relations of Motion, 
Force and Life. 

2. The same line of remark might be followed out at 
length in regard to Force and Motion in every depart- 
ment of the animal kingdom. Here also the Life is 
the Force, and force that never ceases to produce ac- 
tivity. In the ova vitalized, and from that instant, on 
and on through all vicissitudes, Motion is demon- 
strably uninterrupted till death, or rather the cessation 
of Motion is death. The only absolute test of life is 
vital action. When this has ceased it is proof that 
vital force has ceased — that vitality is extinct. Nor is 
there the slightest ground to believe that this vital 
action, having ceased for an instant, can start again of 
itself. Vital activity can no more begin in plant or 
animal organism in which it has once ceased than in 
matter in which it never existed. The animal kingdom, 
then, is a witness, and in all its extent, with myriad 
voices, in perfect unison, it declares, “All Motion is 
from vital force.” The testimony of these two king- 
doms is both positive and negative. Their witness 


40 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


agrees : “ In ns all Motion is from vital force.” “With 
us all Motion ceases when vital force ceases.” 

3. We come now to consider Motion as produced 
by vital organisms beyond that which is in each of 
them for its own up-building and sustaining. The 
Motion which is of vital force within vital organisms 
is indeed wonderful, but the Motion traceable to vital 
force aside from, and over and above that which is ex- 
pended within, is even more wonderful. The aggre- 
gate of the Motion and Force of all living beings on 
the earth, in the sea, and in the upper air, for a single 
day, neither man nor angel could at all estimate. 
Specialists who have studied, for instance, the vital 
force expended by certain kinds of birds in the air, the 
rapidity and continuousness of their motions, have met 
with facts before which the imagination itself stands 
confessedly powerless — wings kept in motion for long 
periods at such rate as to render utterly hopeless all 
efforts in the way of computation or estimate. With 
what wonder, what amazement may we, in some such 
way awakened and instructed, contemplate that aggre- 
gate of motion and of force perpetually kept up by the 
countless myriads of animate beings in earth, air and 
sea even from that of the animalcule of the marshy 
pool or “the ephemeron that sports in the sun-beam” 
to that of behemoth who “maketh the sea to boil like 
a pot of ointment!” This aggregate of motion all 
from the living, all owing to life. 

4. When we come, however, to man, and consider 
the motion really traceable to him, w^ have to deal 


MOTION, FORCE AND LIFE 


41 


with a very different problem, and unless we give 
special attention, we shall probably leave out of the 
estimate the vastly greater part of the evidence in this 
case. For man, unlike all other living beings on earth, 
or at least, infinitely beyond other beings on earth, 
has the power to produce motion, not merely by force 
of muscle without skill, but he has the power to origi- 
nate and sustain motion, on a grand scale, by means of 
the vital force of brain as well. 

The savage who should cast a stone a little way into 
the sea by strength of arm, or from a sling, or shoot 
an arrow from his bow, or propel his little bark a few 
miles from shore, in a calm sea, would give proof of 
the extent of his power. Clearly, in each case, from 
that of the stone which could be hurled but a few rods, 
to that of the vessel which might be propelled perhaps 
as many miles, the motion would be wholly attributable 
to vital force of muscle and brain, or to skill and 
strength. 

The civilized man who constructs and launches the 
ocean steamer that ploughs its furrow through the sea, 
in calm and storm, for thousands of miles, gives proof 
of his power to produce motion by skill and strength. 
The ocean steamer that circumnavigates the globe, 
displacing the water and defying the storm, is, as one 
might truthfully say, hurled around the world ; and 
its motion, in that entire revolution, is as clearly trace- 
able to the vital force of hand and brain in the civiliz- 
ed man, as is that of the stone from the hand, or the 
arrow from the bow, of the savage. Let an honest in- 


42 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


quirer light upon the ocean steamer at any stage of its 
long journey. Let him search the vessel from keel to 
top-mast. Finding no life in hull or rigging, no life in 
coal or fire, no life in water or steam, no life in engine 
or propeller, shall he say, “ This vessel does not owe its 
force and its motion to life at all.” If he so determine 
he is not a philosopher but a fool. For every part of 
the vessel, from keel to top-mast, is eloquent in its tes- 
timony to the vital force of combined skill and 
strength of man in its construction. And this we 
may recognize with all the confidence with which, on 
approaching an eight-day clock in the middle of the 
week, we recognize its onward movement as the result 
of the vital force of the constructor of the clock, com- 
bined with the vital force of the person who wound 
it up ; for not only is the vital force of the hand that 
wound the clock as truly the cause of its continued 
motion as though that hand had never for an instant 
been withdrawn, but the vital force of the contriver 
and actual constructor, though he may have passed 
away centuries ago, is as clearly prolonged as would be 
the vital force of the hand that wound the clock, though 
the very next hour it were cold and motionless in 
death. I have ventured to dwell longer on this illus- 
tration because of the argument it furnishes in favor 
of the recognition of vital force as the cause of other 
and infinitely grander movements. 

5. We come now, to a stage in our investigations in 
which, unless we exercise the utmost vigilance, we shall 
utterly fail to interpret the transcendent scene that 


MOTION, FORCE AND LIFE 


43 


rises before us. Thus far all bas been comparatively 
easy. But now as we reach that grand scene where 
there is an aggregate of motion in comparison with 
which all we have hitherto considered is but as the 
small dust of the balance ; where, as to rapidity, the 
swiftest we have as yet contemplated is as that of the 
snail or the sloth ; where, as to vastness of orbit, even 
that of the Ocean Steamer around the globe is but as 
the “ finger ring of a little girl ” — as we contemplate 
motion on a scale so grand, motion of bodies so vast 
and so numerous, motion in orbits a scarcely percept- 
ible arc of which has been traversed since man appear- 
ed on earth, motion which highest created intelligences 
must regard with never ending wonder and admira- 
tion, shall we begin to detach, in our conception, mo- 
tion from force, or force from that which lives ? If we 
do, how can we any longer pretend that we are con- 
sistent, scientific or philosophical ? All motion hither- 
to considered has been traceable to that which fives. 
Why at this stage begin to question whether that 
which moves is moved by force or whether force pro- 
ceeds from fife? Motion on a small scale we have 
found is from vital force. All the motion that man 
has ever been able to trace to its source he has found 
to proceed from fife. There is not a shred of trust- 
worth evidence that any visible thing on earth has the 
power to originate motion. And the invisible power 
that causes all the motion we can at all trace to its 
source is always vital power. We have traced force 
and motion from that in the smallest seed in plant, 


44 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


and that in the ova in animal life, and have found force 
and motion ever from that which lives. Why then, 
when we stand in the presence of the most wondrous 
motion — motion that speaks of force beyond all con- 
ception — do we, all at once, lapse from the conviction 
that motion must proceed from force and that force 
must proceed from life ? Doubt comes in where evi- 
dence is most abundant. A stone seen moving through 
the air we can believe was hurled by some lad though 
we see him not ; a cannon ball crossing the bay we do 
not doubt was sent by persons having skill and power ; 
an ocean steamer driven around the world we know 
owes its force and motion to skill and power of living 
beings. When we see mighty orbs moving in space, 
why do we raise any question regarding the origin of 
motion and force ? The only shadow of reason that 
can be imagined is that we cannot readily conceive of 
a being able to produce motion on so grand a scale, a 
being infinite, ever present and almighty, the source of 
all motion, all force producing all motion in the uni- 
verse. In a vastly higher sense than that in which the 
motion of the steamship in mid- ocean is to be attribut- 
ed to man, all motion in the universe, including that 
produced in and by vital organisms, in this world and in 
all worlds, is to be attributed to the Infinite, the Ever- 
living, the Almighty. In the presence of the moving 
universe may we not exclaim : “ Power bebnyeth unto 
GoP' 

Why should we hesitate to accept the conclusions 
thus reached ? The data furnished to all men leave 


MOTION, FORCE AND LIFE 


45 


them without excuse. The soundness of the reasoning 
by which I have undertaken to prove that Motion, mere 
Motion, as recognized everywhere in the universe, since 
it assures us of the universality of law, is to us direct 
proof of the existence of the Ever-living, Ever-present 
Lawgiver, is confidently submitted to the judgment of 
candid and competent reasoners. 

The Great Time- piece of the universe in its surpass- 
ing grandeur and glory may continue to move with 
absolute exactness and utmost harmony from age to 
age and century to century; the multitudes of mankind 
may continue to look upon it mainly to see what time 
of day it is, as indicated upon the broad dial plate that 
meets their gaze; may never reflect that this grand Time- 
measurer, like every poor imitation of it man has ever 
constructed, measures time by means of Motion , and 
Motion sustained by Force, this force in its turn neces- 
sarily from the living, traceable to the living ; yet there 
may be those who shall find time, even in this busy 
age, to look with prolonged and steadfast gaze, with 
awakened and quickened powers, and with intensest in- 
terest upon the ever-present and never-exhausted won- 
ders of that aggregate of motion before which all ef- 
fort towards estimate is perfectly powerless; and, 
when favorably situated therefor, the truly evidential 
nature of God’s glorious work may flash out even as 
the noonday itself, so that, before this one surpassing 
demonstration of the power and presence of God, all 
doubt shall be driven away even as night itself is chas- 
ed around our globe by the glorious King of Day ; so 


46 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


that thenceforward, even to life’s close, they shall live 
in the noon- day splendor of unquestioning faith — Faith, 
not vision, for, God gives everywhere and in all things 
not merely proof that he is, but that he is and must be 
forevermore The Invisible. Though invisible, he is 
neither the incredible, nor the Unknowable ; for he has 
set before all men “ the invisible things of him ” and 
these “ are clearly seen, being understood by the things 
that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so 
that they are without excuse.” Among the invisible 
things of him which are clearly seen, that is, clearly 
and fully recognized by all men, motion, force and life 
have place ; for by these are made known the univer- 
sality of law, the presence, power and glory of the 
Ever-living, Ever-present Lawgiver. 


CHAPTER II 


THE LATEST IDOL, — “THE NATURE OF THINGS.” 

44 All the gods of the Nation are Idols."* . . . 

“ Give unto the Lord the Glory due unto His name.”— D avid. 

44 This Old-time Religion . . . 

It was good for Paul and Silas, 

It is good enough for me ." — Jubilee Song. 

44 To you it is commanded O people, nations, and lan- 
guages, that at what time ye hear the sound of cornet, 
flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery , dulcimer , and all kinds 
of music, ye fall down and worship the golden image 
that Nebuchadnezzar the King hath set up."— Daniel. 

Are there, either in the realm of moral or of natur- 
al law, certain truths, axioms or principles which do 
not rest upon or proceed from, either the will, the na- 
ture, or the being of God, but are based upon a nature 
of things ? That is, in morals is right right and wrong 
wrong independently of the will, the nature and even 
the being of God ? In natural law are the relations of 
numbers, lines and figures determined independently 
of God, so that we are forbidden to say that they are 
what they are because he is, and because he is the in- 
finitely wise being that he is? In other words, is there 

♦Even the gods devised, and fashioned hy "The best modern 
thought." 


48 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


in the nature of things a standard of right which exists 
necessarily, independently and apart from God, accord- 
ing to which he himself acts, and are there axioms 
which are derived neither from his will, nor from his 
nature, but which exist independently of God alto- 
gether ? 

I do not hesitate to affirm that there are in the 
realm of morals, certain truths, axioms or principles 
that do rest on the same basis with the axioms or prin- 
ciples, say, of Mathematics or of Natural Philosophy ; 
that is, if the one class of axioms be independent of 
God, so also is the other. If two plus two equal four in- 
dependently of God, then ingratitude is blameworthy 
independently of God. If the axioms in Natural Law 
are not of God, neither are the axioms in Moral Law. 

We are brought thus to a question before which the 
human mind may well stand with utmost awe and 
deepest humility, yet, as it is not possible that a ques- 
tion of this kind should be held in equilibrio , so that 
one’s mind should not incline to one or the other of the 
only two answers possible, and as it can not be denied 
that many persons do very decidedly incline to the be- 
lief that axioms are based upon a nature of things and 
not upon the will, the attributes or the being of God, 
and as this does most assuredly set up a standard unto 
which God himself is assumed to conform, it can not 
be improper to inquire into this matter with utmost 
ardor and patience. 

There is no nature of things, either actual or suppos- 
able, except as things themselves either exist, or are 


THE LATEST IDOL, “THE NATURE OF THINGS’’ 49 


assumed to exist. It might be said that two plus two 
would equal four, even were there no two things in the 
universe — abstract truth would remain. But abstract 
truth must not be assumed to exist in vacuo ; that is, 
not only apart from the concrete, but apart from the 
mind that apprehends it. 

The nature of things, the modern impersonation of 
all abstract truth, can indeed be apprehended as ab- 
stracted from, or apart from, the actually existing 
things in the universe, but this is done by the mind 
that apprehends, so that it is nothing short of down- 
right madness to imagine this “nature of things” as ex- 
isting not only apart from the actual universe, but in 
space, or in vacuo, and apart from the supreme intelli- 
gence ; for surely the created intelligence that appre- 
hends the nature of things can lay no claim to having 
had anything to do in originating or constituting that na- 
ture of things which it apprehends. I realize with what 
limitless scorn the disciple of the best modern thought 
would reject the assertion, that two plus two equal four 
because God himself so determined, or because God is 
and is what he is, every way infinite in his perfections, 
or that the necessary self-evident relations of numbers 
are in any way to be considered as of and from the 
will of God ; yet this conclusion is unavoidable if men 
will but reason carefully and closely, unavoidable, ex- 
cept by the adoption of a view which logically implies 
the denial of God altogether. There is nothing deter- 
mined by the nature of God which is not determined 
by the will of God. To attribute certain determina- 

4 


50 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


tions to the will of God, and others to his nature, is to 
make a distinction for which there is not only no foun- 
dation, but one that is inconsistent with the very con- 
ception of an infinitely perfect being. What proceeds 
from the nature of God proceeds from the will of God. 
Those who attribute axiomatic truths, in the realms of 
natural and moral law, to the nature or being of God, 
may indeed be credited with intending to give to God 
“ the glory due unto his name ” — it is better than to at- 
tribute them to a nature of things supposed to exist in- 
dependently of God — it were well if they could be 
brought to perceive that what is determined by his 
nature is determined not for but by his will. Even the 
defenders of the faith are often swayed by prevalent no- 
tions and formulas respecting the absolute standard of 
righteousness. “When we affirm that God is holy, we 
do not mean that he makes right right, by simply will- 
ing it ; but that he wills it because it is right. There 
must be, therefore, some absolute standard of righteous- 
ness.” To this the most abject worshiper of the latest 
idol, the nature of things, would heartily assent. When 
it is added, “ The absolute standard of right is the di- 
vine nature,” there is furnished but a partial correction 
of the concession made in the previous sentence. To 
find the absolute standard of righteousness in the di- 
vine nature seems indeed to be, to give all glory to 
God ; but if this be done without regarding the will of 
God as of the nature of God, if the will be impliedly 
excluded, the expression is, to say the least, unfortu- 
nate. The will of God beiug of his nature is itself the 


THE LATEST IDOL, “THE NATURE OF THINGS’ 7 51 

absolute standard of right. The will of God is not gov- 
erned by something else — not by a nature of things ex- 
isting apart from God — not by a supposed nature of 
God from which his will is, even in thought, eliminat- 
ed. The will of God is not something related, depend- 
ent and dominated. “ God’s nature makes right right 
and God wills it because it is right !” But, if God’s na- 
ture which makes right right, is a nature wherein his 
will has place, and is in glorious activity and domin- 
ancy, how can his will be spoken of as, in any sense, ex- 
cluded from making right right ? How can it, in any 
proper sense of the terms, be spoken of as governed by 
and conforming to a standard of righteousness when it 
itself is , not only m, and of but the standard of right- 
eousness. To make the nature of God the standard of 
righteousness seems, indeed, a position to which no ob- 
jection could be taken. Had this proposition stood 
alone it might have been accepted without hesitation ; 
for then we should have been at liberty to interpret it 
as equivalent to saying that God himself was the stand- 
ard of righteousness, but we learn by the connection in 
which it is found, that the nature of God is contemplat- 
ed as something apart from, and something that deter- 
mines for the will. The underlying fallacy, in all such 
conceptions, is a most prevalent, and apparently inera- 
dicable fallacy regarding the nature of will. The 
thought is, “ God could not by willing it make wrong 
right.” The conception involved in this statement, 
and that gives it its only significance, is a conception 
that is inadmissible — the conception of God’s willing 


52 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


wrong to be right. This conception is plainly resolv- 
able into the conception of God’s not being God at all. 
The statement should neither be denied nor affirmed 
but should be simply rejected. What God wills can not 
but be right ; for the will of God is itself the standard 
of right. “He wills it because it is right !” This must 
mean that its being right is not owing to his will ; it is 
right on some grounds, and for some reasons apart from 
his will. Man recognizes a standard of righteousness, 
and his will conforms thereto. That standard of right- 
eousness is the will of God, in what way soever made 
known. But does God also recognize a standard of 
righteousness which his will also conforms unto — a 
standard apart from his will, a standard that makes 
right right, and right being made right, he wills it be - 
cause it is right ? 

It would be interesting to know what relation axio- 
matic truths, in the realms of moral and natural law, 
are considered to sustain to the will of God. If God’s 
will must not be regarded as having anything to do in 
the determination of these, if they are not of the things 
that are designedly ordered and arranged by him, if 
they must be conceived of as necessarily determined an- 
tecedently to, and independently of the will of God him- 
self, then, so far as design or intention is concerned, it 
is little matter whether they be attributed to “ the na- 
ture of things ” directly, as so many do, or to a suppos- 
ed nature of God. That which is good and that which 
is true — that which alone is good, that which alone is 
true — God does not merely recognize and confirm “ be - 


THE LATEST IDOL, “THE NATURE OF THINGS” 53 


cause ” it is good and true; he ordains it and it is true 
because it is of Him. Otherwise the sphere of the will 
of God, in which his wisdom and goodness could be 
displayed, must be greatly restricted; otherwise the 
will of God must be conceived of as coming into action 
only in those supposed cases in which there should be 
more than one way possible to be chosen by infinite 
wisdom. What is this but to deny the exercise of the 
will, in that very case in which its glorious prerogative 
is most fully displayed ? Can it be believed that there 
is room for the exercise of the will of God, only where 
“two ways meet;” when that infinite perfection which 
all recognize everywhere in the realms of moral 
and natural law is the result of the infinite perfections 
of God Himself — the result of the free and sovereign 
exercise of all his perfections, including, not excluding, 
his will ? In fact those who deny that the will of God 
had anything to do in determining axiomatic truths in 
the natural and moral worlds have to take but a single 
step to bring them to the feet of the latest idol, The 
Nature of Things. Thus — Before God created the 
material and moral universe, the nature of things 
required that it be, in many respects at least, such as 
that we recognize around us: Other axioms, for in- 
stance, in mathematics, it is not merely impossible for 
us to have the faintest conception of, but we confidently 
affirm that different axioms are impossible. In the same 
manner, and with equal confidence, we affirm that dif- 
ferent axioms in morals are impossible. Two plus two 
can not equal five. Ingratitude can not be praise- 


54 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


worthy. But is it not astonishing, that, on discover- 
ing clearly that truth in the realm of the natural, and 
right in the realm of the moral, are not relative but ab- 
solute, that wisdom infinite manifestly characterizes 
the actual as recognized by us in the natural, and both 
wisdom and righteousness infinite, in the moral world — 
both worlds made by him who is the fountain of wis- 
dom and righteousness, made by free determination 
of the divine will — this very perfection or absoluteness 
of truth, wisdom and righteousness should be made the 
reason for excluding the will or design of God ? 

Admitting that there could not be different axioms, 
i. e., a different nature of things, this would by no 
means prove that the nature of things determines it- 
self, or is not of God ; for if the conception of axioms 
other than the actual be an absurdity, this but proves 
that the actual is the necessary sequence of the infinite 
perfection of the self-existent being. The concep- 
tion of a universe wherein two plus two did not equal 
four, or wherein two straight lines could inclose a 
space, or wherein ingratitude were not blameworthy, is 
a conception of a universe absurd and impossible ; but 
to conclude therefore that the universe is as it is be- 
cause of a supposed necessity arising from a supposed 
nature of things which independently existed, is simply 
to separate wisdom from the wise, intelligence from the 
intelligent, thought from the thinker, morality from 
the moral being. What we recognize, in the realms 
of moral or natural law, as that which could not but 
be, we should recognize as logically connected with the 


THE LATEST IDOL, U THE NATURE OF THINGS” 55 

absolute perfection of the one being whose existence, 
and whose perfection, and whose will , rendered neces- 
sary that entire nature of things of which so much is 
predicated. The necessary existence of God settles every 
thing, leaves nothing conditional or contingent, deter- 
mines all the axioms in the realms of moral and natural 
law. The nature of God being what it is, these could 
not but be as they are, and this is true of what are call- 
ed the free and sovereign works or acts of God, even 
as of those distinguished from them as his necessary 
acts. This view in no respect interferes with the doc- 
trine of pure and mere sovereignty; for the sovereign 
acts of God proceed from his nature as do those we call 
his necessary acts, for these were determined from eter- 
nity as fully and irrevocably as his necessary acts. 
When God says, “ I will have mercy on whom I will 
have mercy,” he assuredly means to set before us his 
will, in its utmost freedom and sovereignty. But this 
supreme act of free and sovereign grace is the act of 
God himself — an act unto which the whole nature of 
God (his will being included in that nature) moved 
him. That God might have done otherwise, in this 
matter, and yet have been the God he is, is a theory 
of well-meaning theologians — a theory inconsistent 
with the highest conception of God. That the saved 
deserved nothing, that they had no claim upon God, 
that there was no obligation upon God from without, 
must never be forgotten ; but to hold that the will of 
God acted for our salvation when his nature did not 
require it, is to glorify the will of God at the expense 


56 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


of a supposed nature of God. In fact we can know 
what the nature of God requires him to do only by 
what he, by his will, actually does. Freedom or sov- 
ereignty in God does neither imply, (a) any dissocia- 
tion of the act from the nature of God, nor (b) any 
doubt or contingency as to the result. To attribute to 
God a sovereignty that does either of these, is not 
to honor but to dishonor him. There are, and perhaps 
ever will be, those who are unable to accept the doc- 
trine that acts may be predetermined and certain from 
eternity, and yet be, in the fullest sense, free acts. 
There may be those who imagine that freedom, whether 
in God or in man, necessarily involves uncertainty. 
For such notions there is perhaps no effectual cure. 

To “the nature of things” much that is admirable is 
ever attributed. If the nature of things be not what 
it is because God so determined, and determined by 
what he is, or what he does, determined by his neces- 
sary or his free acts, but, on the contrary, be something 
independent not only of the created actual universe, 
but independent of the being, the will, the character 
of God himself, and not only so, but something unto 
which God himself must conform, then it follows in- 
evitably, 1st, that no praise is due to God for that ad- 
mirable and beneficent nature of things which men so 
highly laud; 2nd, that there is a law unto which the be- 
ing we call God is subject, i. e., there is a power behind 
the throne, one that rules not merely the creation but 
the Creator. 

The absurdity of the conception of axioms, different 


THE LATEST IDOL, “THE NATURE OF THINGS” 57 

from those we have, is indeed recognized at once. This 
absurdity, it may be freely admitted, is not merely ap- 
parent but real ; yet it by no means follows that the 
nature of things is the power behind the throne, or is 
self-existent or independent of God ; for if the axioms 
in the realms of moral and natural law can not but be 
what they are, it is because God exists necessarily, and 
because he is what he is, and not because some vague 
power, called “ the nature of things,” dominates eter- 
nally in infinite space over all that exists, created or 
Uncreated. 

Both Clarke and Leibnitz, in their notable contro- 
versy regarding space and duration, each indeed in his 
own way, connected space and duration necessarily with 
the being of God. In this they were assuredly right. 
Clarke makes space and duration, necessarily existing, 
attributes of God and therefore proof, “demonstration,” 
to us of his existence. Dr. Chalmers confesses his in- 
ability to follow Clarke, and even ventures to assert 
that he could imagine everything, created and uncreat- 
ed, swept out of existence, yet space and duration to 
remain. Leibnitz boldly maintained that space and 
duration had no existence except, the one as the order 
of relation, and the other as the order of suc- 
cession of things* The interesting point of agree- 
ment, between these two really great Christian philoso- 
phers, is that they both made space and duration solely 

*“Je tenois l’Espace pour quelque chose de purement relatif, 
commele Temps: pour un Ordre des Coexistences, comme le Temps 
est un Ordre des Successions.” Leibnitz : “ Collection of Papers, etc.," 
p. 57. 


58 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


dependent on God ; Clarke directly as attributes of 
God ; Leibnitz simply as relation of created things ; 
while the great Scotch preacher committed himself to 
the faith of somewhat independent of God, in fact a 
house wherein God might dwell but one he did not 
make, one that is his only by the right of perpetual 
occupancy. 

Space and Duration, as well as all axioms in the 
realms of natural and moral law — these and the nature 
of things are all dependent on God, so that it is equally 
absurd to suppose these otherwise, or God not to exist, 
or not to be the God he is. Space and duration be- 
cause they can not be thought not to exist are not 
therefore necessarily self-existent or existent independ- 
ently of the Self-existent Being. Space and duration 
are what they are because God is what he is. In like 
manner all those necessary truths, axioms or relations 
of things which all readily recognize, are necessary as 
they are of and from God. The seeming inconsistency 
in these two respects in which space and duration are 
necessary, may indeed be to many not a little perplex- 
ing. If Dr. Chalmers was unable to see how space, for 
instance, could be at all related to God, if he imagined 
space to be existent independently of God, so that all 
being, created and uncreated, swept oat of existence, 
space would yet remain ; we need not be surprised if 
the multitude, even of learned men, continue to regard 
space as the house God found ready for his occupancy, 
and certain absolute axioms as necessarily existing ac- 
cording to which He must construct and govern both 


THE* LATEST IDOL, “THE NATURE OF THINGS” 59 


the material and moral universe. In short, men will 
talk of “ a nature of things,” as though this were some- 
thing whereunto God himself wisely conforms his 
government. 

That this view so generally accepted, is utterly 
fallacious, I do not for a moment doubt. That the de- 
ception which leads to this view is an exceedingly sub- 
tle one, is most true. That this subtle fallacy can be so 
exposed as to be generally discarded, can not be ex- 
pected. All that can be hoped is that minds capable 
of profound, careful and patient study, may be led to 
see and reject it. 

The necessarily existing, the necessarily true, may 
be related to a whole that is necessary. The necessary 
existence of a part or of that which is so related, in 
such case, is not identical with the independent exist- 
ence of such part or of that which is thus related. 
Suppose space to be, as Clarke calls it, an attribute of 
God, its necessary existence by no means implies its 
independent existence. If space be order of relation of 
existent things, as Leibnitz makes it, this necessary re- 
lation is not something established apart from creation. 
If axioms in moral and natural law be necessary, they 
are not, therefore, independent of that whole of which 
they are part, while, in both cases, they prove the nec- 
essary existence of the whole of which they are part. 

The absurdity which includes all others, is the ab- 
surdity of saying, there is no God. This is the language 
of the fool, i. e., folly in this reaches its utmost height. 
But every notion of a nature of things or of space and 


60 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


duration not of and from and dependent on God is root- 
ed in this fundamental dictum of folly. 

If the axioms which all recognize in the realms of 
natural and moral law, must be conceived of as, not 
only necessarily existing, necessarily true, but as being 
so independently of the will, the character and even the 
being of God, it then follows inevitably, 1st, That the 
universe of matter and mind is constituted, conditioned 
and governed by laws with which God had nothing to 
do. 2nd, By laws which it behooved Him to regard 
and conform unto. 3d., It also follows that not only 
the axioms, but all the deductions therefrom, are alike 
independent of God; for, without question, the most 
elaborate problems in geometry differ in no respect 
from the self-evident propositions except in the clear- 
ness and readiness with which we apprehend them. 

The fallacy that deceives consists in assuming that 
what is necessarily true, is so independently of that 
higher category with which it may be necessarily con- 
nected. 

W e can readily perceive that space and duration can 
not but be, just as we perceive that two straight lines 
can not inclose a space, that all the parts must be equal 
to the whole, or that things which are equal to the 
same are equal to each other, or that ingratitude is 
blameworthy. How these perceived to be necessarily 
true, it is thought they are independently true, whereas 
their being necessarily true but proves to us the neces- 
sary existence of that Being whose existence, whose 
perfections, whose will, originates, sustains and estab- 


THE LATEST IDOL, “THE NATURE OF THINGS.” 61 

lishes all ; so that the absurdity of supposing, for instance, 
space not to exist, or two plus two to equal five 
is that such supposition involves in it the supposition 
of the non-existence of that being whose infinite per- 
fections determine everything. 

Persons who think they can conceive all being, cre- 
ated and uncreated, swept away and yet space and du- 
ration remain, simply deceive themselves. Those who 
imagine they can, even in thought, wander back, not 
only beyond the created, but beyond the uncreated, 
so that, at length, they find themselves encompassed on 
every side with infinite space and infinite duration, 
with these alone, and recognizing these as necessarily 
existing, recognizing these and nothing else, imagine 
they have reached the ultimate, might, with equal 
reason, find that infinite space to contain geometric 
figures and lines having certain necessary proportions, — 
all the angles of every triangle equal to two right an- 
gles — and these necessary truths of mathematics might 
be assumed to exist independently and apart from all 
being, even as space has been supposed to exist inde- 
pendently and apart from all being; whereas axiomatic 
truths no more exist of themselves in empty space than 
actual triangles exist in empty space. 

Given, the axioms universally recognized in the 
realms of law moral and natural, I affirm that it is not 
only absurd to regard these as existing necessarily, in- 
dependently of all else, but it is folly not to recognize 
the fact that their existence proves at once (a) the nec- 
essary existence of a being of infinite perfections, (b) 


62 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


and proves also their own necessary dependence upon 
him, or that they are necessarily true because he ex- 
ists and is what he is. 

All admit that the axioms, truths and principles pre- 
vailing in the natural and moral universe, are wise and 
beneficent. The most skeptical scientist will not even 
entertain the question: Is this or that arrangement in 
nature without design? Nor the question : Is the de- 
sign an evil or malignant one? Science always as- 
sumes that there is design, that there is wisdom ; always 
assumes that the end aimed at is beneficent. Science 
recognizes wisdom and beneficence everywhere in the 
universe, and even when unable to discover these, never 
for an instant, doubts of their existence, but presses 
on from age to age in search of the wise end and bene- 
ficent purpose. But often, like persons color-blind, 
scientists utterly fail to recognize the Being from whom 
alone these traces of wisdom and beneficence could 
come. Wise and beneficent principles or axioms could 
not originate themselves. The Nature of things could 
not be imagined to have caused these wise and bene- 
ficent principles. No rational person could seriously 
entertain the notion that any creature, or all creatures 
together, had anything to do in determining, for in- 
stance, the relations and properties of lines and figures. 
Whence then that marvelous wisdom which even the 
atheistic scientist recognizes in nature, and which he, no 
less than the most devout Christian, believes to exist in 
those instances in which he can as yet find no trace of 
it? To this the philosopher hastens to reply, “You 


THE LATEST IDOL, “THE NATURE OF THINGS” 63 

do not mean that God caused the three angles of a tri- 
angle to be equal to two right angles, or that it is at 
all owing to any determination of God that two plus 
two equal four, or that ingratitude is blameworthy. 
He could not have done otherwise. It must have been 
so in the very ‘nature of things.’ ” “ He could not have 
done otherwise I” If the philosopher had but given the 
pronoun its proper emphasis, had he meant simply that 
a being of infinite wisdom and beneficence could not 
have done otherwise, there had been nothing to find 
fault with. And shall this impossibility of his having 
done otherwise, an impossibility arising from the infini- 
tude of his perfections, be so interpreted as to rob him 
of the authorship and the glory of that ever marvelous 
order of nature which we can never cease to admire ? 

In the realm of physical or natural law the axioms, 
truths and principles contain in themselves potentially 
and logically all that has been or shall be derived from 
them. In like manner, in the realm of moral law, the 
self-evident truths contain in themselves, and logically 
establish, every correct deduction or conclusion, even 
of the most practical kind and under the most compli- 
cated circumstances, that has ever been reached. In 
fact, the main business for us all is to educe right con- 
clusions from the rudimentary axioms of morals ; to 
decide and act, in every emergency and trial of life, in 
correct, logical harmony and accordance with axioma- 
tic moral doctrines and precepts. Now if the nature’ 
of things, not God, furnish the axioms of natural law, 
and if the nature of things, not God, furnish the ele- 


64 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


mentary truths of morals, then, all that is admirable, 
as wise or beneficent, in the realms either of natural 
or of moral law, is due to the nature of things and not 
to God. Logically followed out, the modern doctrine re- 
garding the nature of things, leaves no room , no necessity 
for a God at all. This logical terminus not a few have 
already reached. Towards it multitudes are tending, 
it may be unconsciously but certainly. 

It is this line of thought which has led to a pheno- 
menal outburst of atheism, unparallelled in the 
world’s history. It is Satan’s master-piece of decep- 
tion. Being deceived, our race was first led into tran- 
gression. But the great deceiver has learned much in 
the centuries of his experience in dealing with man- 
kind. His deceptions must now be vastly more subtle 
than those with which he plied our race in former 
ages. 

“The nature of things,” if it furnish all the axioms 
of the natural and of the moral world, is really the 
source of all law. Ho one can have a just conception of 
law, or of the Lawgiver, so long as this latest Idol is 
set in the highest place. 

That this Idol, notwithstanding its exceedingly fine 
workmanship, notwithstanding the high character, 
vast numbers, and lofty pretensions of its worshipers,* 
will share the fate of “ the gods of the nations,” there 
can be no question. For “ the gods that made not the 
heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from off 
the earth and from under these heavens.” Multitudes 
there are who do not hesitate to dismiss with contempt 


THE LATEST IDOL, “THE NATURE OF THINGS.” 65 

the reasonings and conclusions of Christian philoso- 
phers such as Clarke, Leibnitz and Pascal — declaring 
them to be “ words, mere words,” while with boundless 
confidence asserting (a) that space is merely “the con- 
dition of existence,” meaning the condition of the ex- 
istence of all being, (b,) that it exists necessarily and 
independently of the Uucreated as of the created, (c,) 
that the axioms of Mathematics are necessarily true 
quite independently of God, (d,) that ingratitude is 
blameworthy, independently of the will, the character 
and even the being of God. This might be endured 
with some degree of patience, not unmixed with 
pity and even hope ; but when educated and con- 
fessedly able Christian ministers hesitate not to as- 
sent to every one of the four assertions referred 
to, and do so in good faith, and without perceiving 
that in doing so they at all compromise the faith they 
are pledged to defend, it is surely time that some effort 
be made to expose a deception that in this frightful 
way evinces its terrible efficacy. 

All necessary truth, all axioms in moral and natural 
law, however disregarded by multitudes, are evidence 
of the necessarily existent being from whom they pro- 
ceed, and from whom they can not even in thought be 
rationally separated. The acceptance of these axio- 
matic truths is indeed required by the very constitu- 
tion of our own minds as well as by that of the world 
external to us, yet are they none the less on that ac- 
count of and from God. If this view be accepted we 
are constrained to confess that we are ever encompass- 
5 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


ed with direct evidence of the supreme intelligence. 
It is reasonable to presume that the universe should be 
filled with such evidence. 

The nature of things was indeed determined before 
the things themselves were made, but determined by, 
not for the Maker of things; determined by his will, not 
by his nature considered as apart from his will. An 
eternal self-existent nature of things determining alike 
for the Creator and for his creation, is vanity, “is a 
thing of naught,” a mere idol of the brain. 

Time was when a golden image erected on the plain 
of Dura was well suited to be the idol that all langua- 
ges, kindreds and tongues should worship, “ what time 
they should hear the sound of cornet, flute, harp, sack- 
but, psaltery, dulcimer and all kinds of music.” 

The day for the worship of images of gold on plains 
of Dura has gone by. If men can now be at all induc- 
ed in any respect to depart from the worship of the 
true God to the worship of an idol, it must not be one 
of gold or silver, must not be set up on any plain of 
Dura on earth. The idol for the 'present age must not 
be one that is constructed by cunning workmen, at the 
bidding, and by the munificence of monarchy. The 
idol of the present day, the only idol, the only kind of 
idol that men in this age can be induced to worship, is 
one that is devised and fashioned by the “ best modern 
thought.” And even this idol must be set up on a 
plain so high, so distant, so inaccessible that the wor- 
shipers shall see it but dimly and afar off. So also other 
notes than those of cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery 


THE LATEST IDOL, “THE NATURE OF THINGS.” 67 


and dulcimer must be relied on to call tbe millions in 
our day to fall down and worship. Space and duration 
eternally and necessarily and independently existing 
furnish the plain of Dura. Axioms, truths, principles of 
natural and moral law, or “the nature of things,” self- 
existent and independent of all else, furnish the fine 
material for the image. The best modern thought, at 
the bidding of science, constructs the image. 

To the worship of this last and loftiest image we are 
all now called — “ a new god which neither we nor 
our fathers worshiped, a new god newly sprung up,” 
one who disdains to contend with other gods for a 
place of equality with them, or for a portion of our 
earth, but who lifts his sceptre over the created and the 
Uncreated, claiming to reign eternally and necessarily 
over all that exists in infinite space. 

If we can not be philosophers, if we cannot follow 
the reasonings of Christian philosophers, who, on ra- 
tional grounds as well as scriptural, “give all glory to 
God,” let us at least be devout believers of the Bible. 
Let us read and ponder the many texts of Scripture 
that expressly declare that all glory is due to God. 
Let us heed the declaration of the creed which assures 
us that “the scope of the whole is to give all glory to 
God.” Reading and clinging to Scripture, let us refuse 
to “fall down and worship,” even though the air be 
filled with music more lofty, more varied and more 
pretentious than that of “cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, 
psaltery and dulcimer.” 


CHAPTER III 


THE NATURE OF MORAL LAW 

Law not only proceeds from God as its source ; it has 
no existence except as presently and directly proceed- 
ing from him. Law is not that which was once com- 
manded, or was written on tables of stone ; but that 
which the Ever-living, Ever-present Lawgiver now 
commands. Law is from God and dependent on him 
in a higher sense than is the light of day from and de- 
pendent upon the sun in the heavens ; for were the sun 
blotted out his rays would for a few minutes continue 
to lighten and warm our earth ; but law exists not an 
instant apart from God. Whosoever deals with law phy- 
sical or moral, deals not with law merely, but with God, 
of whose presence and power law is the perpetual de- 
monstration. 

Law as force and law as commandment, these are 
the two forms of law known to us. They are both di- 
rectly from the will of God. Infinite power confess- 
edly insures the inviolability of every natural law. In- 
finite power sustains every moral law. The authority 
of the Lawgiver is concentrated in every precept of his 
law, and the power of the Lawgiver secures that law 


THE NATURE OF MORAL LAW 


69 


made known and addressed unto moral beings shall not 
be “ mocked.” That which could be mocked, i. e., vio- 
lated with impunity, would not be law. Human leg- 
islators recognize this truth ; for they never enact law 
without penalty, and they never consent that penalty 
shall be unsustained by the utmost power of govern- 
ment. If then there be law in the universe at all, there 
must be an infinite power, an infinite Being who ever 
sustains law so that in no instance can it be violated 
with impunity. 

All beings and things lower in the scale than moral 
beings having free will, have the law which governs 
them wholly “implanted in the very constitution of 
their nature while moral beings are under law 
which is wholly unto them in the form of command- 
ment. There is, indeed, in the very constitution of 
their nature, capacity for perceiving and obeying law 
when and in what way soever made known unto them, 
and this capacity creates an obligation to obey law ; 
they are not law unto themselves, they have not the 
moral law revealed in the very constitution of their 
nature. The law for all moral beings is the will 
of God in commandment made known unto them, and 
not an inward principle. It is by overlooking this 
one grand distinction that a flood of errors has come 
in to deluge the whole world of human thought and 
judgment on this subject. Great mistakes in regard to 
this subject have been made by those who believe, as 
well as by those who reject, the Bible. The opposers 
of outward revelation ever confidently assume that all 


TO 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


law is in the subject of law as part of its nature. Inor- 
ganic matter obeys law that is part of its nature ; so 
organic beings and things, vegetable and animal — no 
commandment unto these, all the law within them. 

With great confidence is it asserted that “ Man must 
in like manner be governed by law which is wholly 
within.” No outward revelation direct from God can 
for a moment be admitted. This is surely the strong- 
hold of skepticism as regards divine revelation. 

Every skeptic lauds the law implanted in man’s con- 
stitution, while despising and scorning any law claim- 
ing to be a divine revelation. Every errorist also 
glorifies the “ inward light,” and puts contempt upon 
the outward revelation. 

Christian apologists have all along made a most un- 
fortunate mistake in admitting that there may be 
moral beings who are not under law in the form of 
commandment, but under law implanted within them ; 
that man at his creation had “ the moral law revealed 
in the very constitution of his nature,” that “he was 
law unto himself,” that “ he was the moral law unto 
himself I ” So far from this being the case, the law, 
the only law, the observance of which was to deter- 
mine his destiny, was outward revealed law. More- 
over the sin, which “brought death into our world 
and all our woe,” was one to which the inward 
promptings of his sinless nature, apart from revealed 
law, certainly inclined and disposed him. His sin 
consisted in making his own sinless nature the law of 
his conduct ; whereas God had made His own revealed 


THE NATURE OF MORAL LAW 


71 


will, His commandment, such law. The problem of 
the origin of sin, on any other view, is darkness itself. 
How a sinless being could entertain the first thought 
of evil has ever been a most perplexing question. If 
sin be conceived of as consisting in following natural 
sinless propensities, in disregard of outward law which 
in its very nature requires the denial, or the subordi- 
nation of these ; it is then much less difficult to con- 
ceive how holy beings might transgress. The issue 
was a necessary one. Given, creatures endowed with 
freedom of will, placed under law which, in its 
very nature, is the will of the Lawgiver made known 
unto them by revelation of some kind, it could not 
but be that the required surrender of the will should 
involve a frightful trial. All beings having law with- 
in them, or in the very constitution of their nature, 
were safe — safe because not exalted ; but creatures 
made in the image of God, endowed with freedom of 
will, placed under law which is commandment ad- 
dressed unto them, are lifted up to a position of ut- 
most honor and of utmost danger — danger, too, insepar- 
able from the honor. No being is holy, is loyal to 
God, is obedient to law, who merely obeys law im- 
planted in the very constitution of his nature ; no, not 
though that nature be pure and holy, as was that of 
angels when called into being, or that of our first 
parents in Eden. No act is obedience to law if per- 
formed merely from inward promptings, and not from 
regard to law made known as the will of God. Even 
if conscience could prompt to an act, however good in 


72 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


itself, without regard to law as the will of God, such 
act could not be praiseworthy or rewardable. But 
conscience can never do this, for it ever binds us to 
obey law in what way soever made known unto us. 

“ Of the trees of the garden thou mayst freely eat.” 
W e, then, need a divine warrant for the indulgence of 
the sinless appetites of our nature. “ Of the tree that 
is in the midst of the garden thou shalt not eat.” A 
limit must, then, be set by divine commandment to the 
gratification of natural sinless promptings. Both the 
warrant and. the limit clearly intimate that God’s will 
made known to us, and not the mere existence of even 
sinless propensities, is law to us. Carefully considered, 
the whole transaction profoundly impresses on our 
minds the momentous truth never for an instant to be 
forgotten, that law to moral beings is the will of God in 
commandment , that sin is the transgression of revealed 
law, that is, of law in any manner made known to us 
as God’s will, and that law is transgressed by any be- 
ing, even a sinless one, making his own will law unto 
himself. 

“Even Christ pleased not himself.” This is the 
strongest form of asserting that no subject of law may 
please self. The existence of inward propensities and 
the opportunity for gratifying them are all that ani- 
mals, mere animals require; for, they have law im- 
planted “in the very constitution of their nature,” they 
are incapable of receiving law in the form of com- 
mandment. The philosophy (?) which places men, in 
this respect, in the same rank with animals, is beastly 


THE NATURE OF MORAL LAW 


73 


and horrible. Thitherward ever tend the philosophies 
of the opposers of divine revelation. The buffalo on 
the plains, are law to themselves, their nature, their 
appetites, their propensities, and the varied means for 
the gratification of these determine everything. The 
herd grazes, seeks water or shelter, as directed by in- 
ner law. Man, with his measureless superiority, if he 
also govern himself by mere inner law, and look not up 
to discover law as the will of God made known unto 
him, degrades himself not merely to the rank of the 
herd, but falls infinitely beneath them, and incurs 
wrath and doom that they do not ; for in doing this he 
disobeys law , the only law, the only kind of law moral 
beings can possibly be under. The consequences of 
that philosophy, which makes man law to himself, 
have been horribly exemplified in the whole course of 
human history. Indeed this is the one grand mistake 
of our race, a mistake regarding the very nature of 
moral law ) the fatal mistake of assuming that law to 
man is in his nature, is revealed “in his very constitu- 
tion,” or that “ he is law to himself.” This was the 
mistake made by our first parents in Eden. To this 
they were led by the great deceiver. The deception 
is in its own nature most subtle ; in fact, the thinnest 
edge of the thinnest wedge, forged and sharpened for 
dividing our race from its loyalty to the throne of God, 
a wedge which has been driven, with horrid strokes and 
with horrid success, in all the centuries of the world’s 
history. 

To assume that man is law to himself is not merely 


74 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


a mistake in the case of fallen man. It is equally a 
mistake, it is an equally frightful mistake, if made by 
unfallen man or unfallen angel ; for, overcome by this 
deception, neither man nor angel keep for an instant 
the “first estate.” And were it possible for “the 
spirits of just men made perfect,” or for “elect angels” 
to repeat this mistake, that is, to loose sight of the 
will of God made known unto them, and follow, for 
one hour, the mere promptings of their holy or restor- 
ed nature, (I mean their whole nature including con- 
science itself i. e., if the conscience should assume to be 
a guide without regard to the will or law of God re- 
vealed,) there would occur a fall that would cause the 
first to be forgotten. 

Christ came not to do his own will. Christ did not 
make even his sinless nature the law of his life. That 
he had a “self” which he “pleased not,” a “will,” 
which he denied, a perfect human nature which he 
kept in perpetual subjection to outward law there is 
the fullest evidence. Had he yielded to the demands 
of even his sinless nature he had refused the cup in 
Gethsemane. The trial was, as to its nature, of the same 
kind with that of our first parents. It was a question 
of conformity to inward promptings or to outward ex- 
press command. Christ’s whole work was obedience 
to commandment. “Every word he uttered, every 
work he did, was by commandment. My Father which 
sent me He gave me commandment what I should say 
and what I should do ; as he gave me commandment 
therefore so I speak. And grand as was his willing 


THE NATURE OF MORAL LAW 


75 


priestly act of laying down his life ; and only second 
to it in grandeur as was his kingly act of taking it 
again; both these acts of Zion’s Koyal High Priest 
were done in obedience to strict imperative command, 
statute and ordained. ‘ I lay down my life of myself 
and I take it again ; this commandment received I of 
my Father.’ Aye, at this moment he is acting by 
commandment, by the imperative law and obligation 
of official duty.”* Christ saved us not by obeying the 
inward law of his holy human nature, but by obeying 
commandment which in its very nature required the 
utmost suppression of the utmost cravings and demands 
of even his sinless humanity. These found expression 
in the prayer in Gethsemane : “ Father, if it be possible 
let this cup pass from me.” 

“ Christ’s life was a working out of the law, the put- 
ting of the commandments into a visible form. His life 
sustains the same relation to the commandments of 
God that the beautiful building sustains to the plans and 
specifications of the designer. The building is the plans 
and specifications put into marble. Christ’s life is the 
commandments put into deeds. He says, ‘I came to 
do the will of him that sent me. My meat and my 
drink is to do the wfill of Him that sent me. As the 
Father gave me commandment even so I do.’ If we 
had the power of analyzing every thought to which 
he gave lodgement, every plan which he announced, 
everv deed which he wrought, we would find in them 


*The Atonement, p. 282, Hugh Martin. 


76 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


as their very soul the substance of God’s command- 
ments. Solomon tells us that the religious life which 
he sets forth as the only true life consists in keeping 
God’s commandments. What sort of life can be con- 
structed within the lines and limits of the command- 
ments ? I reply, the grandest sort of life. W e know 
what the commandments are. They are thoughts and 
purposes from the mind of God. They are great with 
love and foresight. We know how broad they are. 
They deal with the heart and discern its thoughts and 
intents. They command the obedience of our mental 
conceptions and purposes. They claim authority over 
all our words and acts.”* 

The obedience required of the first Adam, which he 
failed to render, as well as that required of the second 
Adam, which he fully rendered, was obedience to com- 
mandment. In both instances the obedience in its very 
nature involved the denial, not of sinful, but of sinless 
humanity. 

Is there not in this a lesson to which we should give 
utmost heed ? That our first parents were required, in 
but a single instance, to deny self and to render obedi- 
ence to the mere will of God can not safely be assumed. 
The tres p laisant notion that holiness shall consist in fol- 
lowing always and in all things the promptings of a 
holy, or restored, human nature, is one that prevails 
astonishingly and pleases wondrously the fancy of even 
sensible and not wholly ignorant people. The doctrines 


*Rev. David Gregg. 


THE NATURE OF MORAL LAW 


77 


taught in Scripture, the facts recorded in Scripture, 
utterly overthrow this fond hope of being able at length 
to serve God with that which shall cost nothing. There 
was not in Eden any more than in Gethsemane, there 
will not be in heaven any more than on earth, the en- 
thronement of nature with its sinless cravings and dic- 
tates. No ; law retains its place, directs as to the exer- 
cise of all natural desires and propensities, fixes the 
limit, compasses man round on every side, so that he 
lives, moves and has his being in the all-embracing 
atmosphere of divine, outward law, or commandment. 
Holy beings choose indeed to please God, not self, and 
to this they are disposed by conscience or the moral 
sense, so that this constant self-restraint is due to that 
which is implanted within them, i. e., to conscience ; 
but conscience in its noblest and highest estate, while 
it forbids self-pleasing, never for an instant assumes to 
itself sovereignty, but ever looks for, waits for the will 
of God. Conscience rules according to the law it re- 
ceives from God. Conscience never says, I bid you do 
this, but always, God requires this. It may misinter- 
pret, it can not repudiate law. 

Conscience is too often regarded as a kind of micro- 
scopic Bible in the heart of man ; as when we read in 
standard orthodox writers such declarations as these : 
“ Adam was law unto himself. He was the moral law 
unto himself,” or “ The moral law, at least as to its es- 
sential principles, and as far as was necessary for the 
guidance of men in a state of innocency, was revealed 
in the very constitution of man’s nature.” 


78 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


Adam was not law unto himself; he fell by seeking 
to be law unto himself. “ The moral law revealed in 
the very constitution of man’s nature ” could not have 
guided him “ in a state of innocency ” to any act which 
would have been truly and fully significant of his sub- 
jection to the divine will. When Paul speaks of the 
heathen as having the law written in their hearts, and 
contrasts their condition with that of Christians who 
have the written revelation, he does not mean that the 
heathen are wholly destitute of. external, or outward 
law. The conscience of the heathen decides according 
to law as made known to the heathen, in that vast and 
varied but imperfectly interpreted revelation of God’s 
will which all the heathen have. Conscience so far 
from being itself law unto man, is that faculty which 
fits him for recognizing, appreciating and obeying law 
in any manner made known unto him; and, like the 
faculty of hearing or seeing, conscience requires for its 
action that it be furnished with the light of law, or the 
voice of God, which alone is law. The too prevalent 
notion that conscience has power such as would be fitly 
represented by eyes of such marvelous power that they 
could not merely see, but could furnish the light by 
which they were able to see, and not only so but could 
also furnish the objects to be seen, is sufficiently ab- 
surd. In fact many writers who have examined, for 
us, the conscience have reported as belonging to it ori- 
ginally, the revealed law which it had received ; very 
much as if a naturalist, after examining the eye of a 
living animal, should report that he found in it trees, 


THE NATURE OF MORAL LAW 


79 


houses, blue sky and distant clouds ; whereas he should 
have reported that it had, of itself, nothing but the 
power or capacity for perceiving these, and this only 
on condition, 1st, that these objects were before it ; 2d, 
that there were sufficient light in which they could be 
seen. Conscience, the eye of the soul, perceives noth- 
ing except as furnished with the light of law, that is 
the light of the knowledge of the divine will in what 
way so ever such light may be communicated. With 
this light the universe is filled. In some parts indeed 
it shines dimly, in others more clearly, but in no part 
is it wholly wanting ; so that all are without excuse. 
“Because that which may be known of God is manifest 
in them for God hath showed it unto them. For the 
invisible things of him from the creation of the world 
are clearly seen, being understood by the things that 
are made, even his eternal power and God-head ; so 
that they are without excuse.” “ Without excuse ” be- 
cause of the light they have, means with excuse had 
they no light. 

Conscience is the faculty of hearing. Law is God’s 
voice whereby his will is made known to moral beings 
who have ears to hear and therefore ought to hear. 
God’s voice, as law, reaches moral beings in infinite 
variety of ways. Indeed the universe is the grand 
auditorium wherein God ever makes known his will 
to all who have ears to hear ; so that in no part of the 
universe is this voice unheard. God does indeed speak 
in and by the conscience, but, for this very reason, it 
all the more gives attentive heed to His voice as law 


80 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


made known in commandment. Law, then, to all 
moral beings, is law “statute and ordained,” is the will 
of God in commandment. To confound law of this 
kind, and thus addressed unto the subject of law, with 
that which is implanted within, as part of the nature 
of the being governed by it, is to confound things that 
are not only separated toto coelo and forevermore, but 
necessarily separated. If man has in him law which 
is part of his nature, so far as he is governed merely by 
such law, so far his acts are not praiseworthy, can not 
be called, in any proper sense of the word, obedience 
to moral law. In obeying such law he simply pleases 
self, he is law unto himself. The tendency is ever to 
this conclusion, in the case of all those who deny divine 
outward revelation, and hold to mere inward law for 
man. * This is the logical terminus of that false theory. 
Law only and wholly in man’s nature ; no command 
from God ; no revelation, i. e., no law, therefore, no 
transgression. The modern advocates of the doctrine 
of “ Individualism ” have boldly and distinctly asserted 
man’s absolute independence of outward law, independ- 
ence of goverment of any kind from without. Pages 
might be filled with the horrible, yet perfectly logical 
conclusions of these consistent and courageous advo- 
cates of inward as opposed to outward law. 

Excellence in God consists in his acting in accord- 
ance with the law of his being ; for He alone is law to 
himself; but excellence in every subject of law consists 
in conscious voluntary obedience to the will of God. 
Eight action in God is a necessity, yet since this neces- 


THE NATURE OF MORAL LAW 


81 


sity arises from the infinitude of his perfections it is, in 
the fullest sense voluntary and praiseworthy ; whereas 
right action in the case of any mere creature, or sub- 
ject of law, in order to be praiseworthy, in order to be 
in any proper sense obedience to law, must be action 
the opposite of which was possible, that is, the possi- 
bility of doing otherwise gives significance or value to 
the right action of every subject of law. 

How shall moral beings be assured that they shall 
never disobey the law of God when, so far as their own 
constitution and nature are concerned, there is not only 
no impossibility of disobedience, but the perpetual 
possibility of disobedience is itself a necessity, and that 
without which there could be no praiseworthy obedi- 
ence at all ? This problem, which from the very nature 
of the case could not but arise, has, as we know by 
revelation, been solved in a way which at once glori- 
fies the wisdom and grace of God and calls forth utmost 
admiration of all. Confirmation whether of men or of 
angels is due to Christ alone, to Christ the one only 
servant of God whose obedience is assured by his divine 
nature. Christ the divine servant of God is pledged 
for, and ensures the standing of all holy creatures. 
Saints and holy angels, not law unto themselves, obey 
the law of God and their obedience is praiseworthy as 
it is rendered voluntarily, while the opposite is ever 
naturally possible, and only impossible because of the 
power, grace and faithfulness of Christ who stands for 
them. May it not be that confirmation in holiness is 
that which Christ alone could bestow ? Mere creatures 


82 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


endowed with freedom of will, without which they 
should have been incapable of virtue, could not be ab- 
solutely ensured and confirmed in holiness and happi- 
ness by anything within them, or on the ground of their 
own stability. W e might indeed admit that God could 
have extended to men or angels gracious confirmation 
in some other way than by Christ ; but since we know 
of no other way, since we can conceive of no other way, 
and since this way is so fully revealed in Scripture, so 
glorifying to God, and so satisfying to all holy beings, 
it is needless to speculate about other possible ways of 
confirmation. God has “made known to us the mystery 
of his will which he purposed in himself, that he might 
gather together in ONE all in Christ both which are in 
heaven and which are on earth .” The fact that confirm- 
ation in holiness was necessary in the case of all orders 
of moral beings of whom we have any information, 
men and angels, and the fact that this needed confir- 
mation was in neither case imparted as a charism or 
grace in the keeping of the confirmed, but was the re- 
sult of a relation constituted between them and the one 
only subject of law, who by virture of his humanity 
was able to render obedience while by virtue of his di- 
vinity that obedience is absolutely ensured, may well 
teach us a most solemn and profound lesson regarding 
the very nature of moral law. It should quite dispel 
from our minds the fond, foolish, unscriptural and every 
way harmful sentiment that to obey the law of our be- 
ing, to do our own will, to please self, may be holiness, 
may be all that is required of us. Moral law is in its 


THE NATURE OF MORAL LAW 


83 


very nature the will — yes the “ revealed will ” of the 
lawgiver. It may be revealed in endless variety of 
ways but in whatsoever way revealed it must be ad- 
dressed unto , it can not be implanted in its subject. 

A moral being without free will i. e., “ not capable 
of choosing, or committing any sin” is confessedly a 
moral being purely imaginary. Calvin concedes this, 
while he inadvertantly or rashly assumes that such be- 
ings might have been created, and also that they would 
have been more excellent.* A mere creature “ incapa- 
ble of choosing or committing any sin ” would be a 
creature incapable of rendering any acceptable and re- 
wardable obedience unto moral law. The not choos- 
ing or committing of sin is ever regarded as necessar- 
ily connected with the choosing and doing of what God 
commands. Besides were creatures so constituted 
that they could not but pursue the right way, could not 
but do the very things which law requires, what need 
had there been for law or commandment at all? To 
what purpose should there be strict law prescribing all 
their acts ? Law as the will of another certainly implies 
that there be a revelation of that will; that the will 
which is to direct should in some way be made 
known. A being having free will can not be subject to 
the will of another without surrendering his own will. 
The holiest mere subject of law is endowed with pro- 
pensities, appetites and desires which ever and directly 
demand gratification ; if these are in any respect de- 


*Calvin’s Institutes, chap. xv. p. 182. 


84 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


nied it must be for reasons duly considered and approved. 
A moral being destitute of that “ self,” that “ will ” to 
which our Lord refers — the self that he pleased not, 
the will that he did not — never existed, can not be con- 
ceived to exist. What are we taught in this life, by 
the discipline we are under, what is the net result of all 
that grace itself proposes to teach us, if it be not the 
choosing and doing of the right, when by the very con- 
stitution of our nature the choosing and doing of the 
wrong is possible ; the denying of the demands of 
self that we may render obedience to the will of 
another; our saying from the heart “ Thy will he done f” 
And 11 Thy will be done ” always means, always takes 
for granted as preceding it “Not my will.” Our Lord 
by his express words, by his life, by his sufferings, by 
his death, has taught us the true meaning of this 
prayer. If it were possible for any one to say “ thy 
will be done ” without having first said “ not my will,” 
the whole significance of the words would be changed. 
Not thus is God served either by angels or men. 
The will wherewith they are endowed; the self with 
its incessant and necessary cravings; the will* with its 
innate and incessant aspirations; these render them 
capable of true and significant tribute to the supreme 
will. Nor must it be thought that the will or the self 
that demands gratification is at length extinguished or 
silenced. This cannot be. Christ’s life of self-denial 
assuredly did not silence the demands of self so that in 
Gethsemane it ceased to plead for exemption from suf- 
fering. Ceased to plead ? Its demands were never so 


THE NATURE OF MORAL LAW 


85 


intense. Its appeal never before so vehement. Did 
this vehemency of the demand of sinless self detract 
from the value and significance of Christis surrender? 
The existence and the utmost vehemency of these de- 
mands gave value and significance to that true tri- 
umph. 

Let it not be thought that Christ’s obedience in this 
matter was peculiar, anomalous, unique, and therefore 
not significant of the very nature of true loyalty to the 
divine will. This was indeed the utmost test of by- 
alty ; in this case the surrender of self was most com- 
plete. But praiseworthy doing of God’s will always and 
necessarily implies self-surrender, a joyous, indeed, yet 
a costly offering. The choosing of God’s will rather 
than our own, in the nature of the case, implies per- 
petual surrender of self, perpetual renouncement of 
gratification. This surrender, this renouncement, is not 
loss, but gain, since God’s will is not only better than 
ours, but is infinitely better, and this we must ever clear- 
ly see to be so. This surrender is not loss but gain since 
only by self- renouncement, by ceasing to please self we 
ascend from the low plane, a plane we occupy in com- 
mon with the irrational tribes, to the higher plane of 
joyous, voluntary and accepted service of God; sur- 
render and renouncement of earth for heaven, of 
earthly for heavenly joys. That there is bliss of a 
higher kind than gratification may be to the carnal 
mind incredible ; that there is bliss so exalted in its 
nature that it cannot begin till gratification ceases may 
be a conception which the carnal never entertain. 


86 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


Christ “ counts it not dishonor to be under imperative 
commandment, and shall his members, though the re- 
generating Spirit dwells in them, claim an exemption 
from what the Son was not, from what the Son counts 
it honorable not to be exempt even in His heavenly 
glory. Shall believers, because the Spirit puts the law 
into their hearts, claim a right to act merely at the 
dictate of inward gracious principle, untrammelled, un- 
controlled by outward peremptory statute ? I appeal 
to Paul where he says 1 The law is holy,’ and adds, as 
if to show that it was no inward actuating law of the 
heart, but God’s outward commanding law to the will : 
‘ The law is holy, and the commandment is holy, and 
just, and good.’ I appeal to the sweet singer of 
Israel. I find him, owning himself with joy as under 
peremptory external law : ‘ Thou hast commanded us 
to keep Thy precepts diligently. O that my ways were 
directed to keep Thy statutes. Then shall I not be 
ashamed, when I have respect to all Thy command- 
ments 


*Hugh Martin. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE WILL 

As we can have no clear or jnst conception of law 
if we fail to regard it as merely and solely the will of 
the supreme lawgiver, made known unto all subjects 
of law, made known in commandment ; so we can have 
no just conception of what constitutes obedience to law, 
if we fail to apprehend the truth that law, which pro- 
ceeds from will alone, terminates upon and deals with 
will alone. Only by coming to a just conception of 
the nature of the will can we understand either law or 
obedience. The direct study of the very nature of the 
will is therefore a necessity if we would understand 
law as given forth, or law as either obeyed or violated. 
To give forth law is to give, in revelation, expression 
of will in commandment unto another, unto the will 
of another. To obey law is willingly to accept the 
will of another. When this takes place there occurs 
that which deserves to be profoundly studied. There is 
more in this transaction than careless observers dream 
of. It is only because will in its own nature was made 
capable of giving law that it is capable of obeying 
law. 


88 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


The will is self -asserting, seeks supremacy, aspires to 
be above all. This is an inherent and essential element 
in the nature of will; and if in any instance it is 
brought to acquiesce in, accept and delight in, a state of 
subjection, or subordination to the will of another, it is 
always for good and sufficient reasons duly considered, 
and not because it sought or desired a subordinate place. 
Every being possessed of free will, (and there is no other 
kind of will but free will,)left to its own bent, and 
apart from external influences, would choose ever the 
first place, would seek to give rather than receive law. 
This aspiration towards supremacy renders the will 
competent to be the source of law, but it none the less 
renders it competent to be the subject of law and fits it 
to obey law. Every creature having free will is a source 
of law as well as a subject of law. There is no moral 
being but has a kingdom, be it ever so small, over 
which he has rightful dominion; and no moral 
person whether consisting of human or angelic beings 
in capacity of a government be it ever so great in power 
or vast in extent, but is a subject of the divine law as 
well as a sovereign in its own dominion. Will could 
neither give law nor obey law were it destitute of this 
noble aspiration. The utter extinguishment of this di- 
vine flame in the noblest subject of law would render 
it incapable of true and praiseworthy obedience. 

Though this view of the will seems to me almost 
self-evident, I submit a few considerations in support 
of it. 

1. Children invariably and beyond dispute do early, 


THE WILL 


89 


uniformly and in a great variety of ways, give abund- 
ant evidence that they seek to be above all, to rule 
all, to have their own way regardless of the will, wish 
or interest of others. This confessedly universal ten- 
dency and effort to dominate over all, and the univer- 
sal, and even furious, expression of dissatisfaction when 
these efforts fail, seem to indicate an innate and essen- 
tial quality of the will. To maintain that this is a re- 
sult of the fall of our race, to imagine that the demon- 
strative disposition and effort to dominate over all, to 
rule rather than be ruled, is owing wholly to the fall 
of man, to entertain the idea that but for the fall, child- 
ren would have been wholly destitute of this charac- 
teristic, would indeed be an easy, summary and effec- 
tual way of disposing of this and related difficult prob- 
lems. If there are those who can dispose of this whole 
matter in this way, it would be cruelty to disturb them 
farther with questions of this kind. 

2. The whole course of human history — the con- 
duct of mankind, after this first demonstrative asser- 
tion of desire and effort to dominate — points in the same 
direction. The will is indeed chastened, disciplined, 
taught, by many lessons, that there is a severe limit 
that it may not pass ; yet chastened, disciplined and 
taught, its native aspiration remains, remains operative, 
influences, actuates, inspires the whole life; so that 
every one actually makes his will — the good in legiti- 
mate, the evil in bad and violent ways — dominant to 
tbe extent of his ability and opportunity. Moreover, 
seeking to rule over men, to be a true king of men, 


90 


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crowned or uncrowned king, provided this be sought 
in legitimate ways and for proper ends, is ever regard - 
with approbation. 

3. Some light may be obtained upon this subject by 
an appeal to consciousness. It may require a special 
eflort, it may be a severe tax upon our honesty, it may 
lor many reasons prove a peculiarly difficult task, but 
bravely and perseveringly attempted in the interest of 
truth, it can hardly be that there should be, 
in the end, utter failure to catch the true mean- 
ing of the voice of consciousness as regards this matter. 
We grow so cautious, so regardful of our reputation, 
so careful lest any voice from the depths of our hearts 
should betray us, that we scarcely dare to say to our- 
selves, or to put into definite shape, many of the plain 
every day utterances of consciousness. Let there be a 
group of children, they may say, may frankly admit 
that they would like to be kings, queens, presidents or 
emperors ; an equal number of grown persons would 
say, “ Ho, we have no such desires, we are content, we 
do not aspire to rule or to be above others.” Ah ! Do 
you not ? Confess it, you would like to be dominant, 
to be above all. Were you given your choice you 
would not choose a second place. If any one imagines 
there is not in him any spark of ambition to be domin- 
ant in any place among mankind, he but deceives him- 
self. Search among the ashes; and without doubt on 
the hearthstone, a hearthstone not yet absolutely cold, 
will be found a glowing spark that needs but to be 
blown to cause a flame that would leap towards the 


THE WILL 


91 


throne of universal empire. “ Every man is born with 
a pope in him,” — such was Luther’s blunt way of ex- 
pressing the truth that every one really would be 
dominant — a truth which consciousness, history and ob- 
servation abundantly confirm. This pope may be an 
exceedingly repressed, and at length quiet, and even 
quiescent one; so small and shrunken indeed, that he 
may well hide himself among the stuff, so that only 
very diligent and thorough search shall find him out, 
yet diligent and thorough search for him shall never 
be made in vain. 

I am aware that the testimony of consciousness can 
have weight only with those who have at once the 
ability, the courage, and the honesty to appeal unto, 
and interpret faithfully the oracle of consciousness. It 
may be remarked that it is not meant that the major- 
ity, or even that very many, actually, and in view of 
their entire situation, seek or desire to be dominant. 
All that is meant is that but for reasons they would 
actually desire and seek. Any one not able to pene- 
trate beyond the actual desires, which prudential rea- 
sons and not the very heart itself have shaped and for- 
mulated, need never expect to catch the still small 
voice of consciousness. Such can hear only the thun- 
der and the lightning and the earthquake. Perhaps 
the m^in reason men do not accept this testimony of 
consciousness is that this native desire for dominancy 
has been so perverted, and has led to so much crime 
that they condemn, not merely the abuse, but the very 
thing itself. 


92 


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4. Man is made in the image of God. He is like 
God in that he also is endowed with will. This it is 
which exalts him and makes him god-like indeed. But 
God’s will seeks and obtains supremacy. It might be, 
it is, maintained that the will in the creature, in its 
very nature, seeks, desires, and is wholly satisfied with 
subordination. This is judged to be what ought to be. 
It is thought that without this the creature could 
neither be holy nor happy. This is a philosophy that 
would readily and nicely dispose of this matter but for 
certain difficult problems that meet us. Holy angels 
fell. Perfect human beings fell ; fell by attempting to 
rise to supremacy, by an attempt to lift themselves 
from the place of subordination. Now if will in its 
own nature ever and necessarily aspires to supremacy, 
both the reason and the manner of these falls we can 
in some measure understand. On the other hand, if 
the will in its own nature always and fully accepts the 
subordinate place, the problem of the fall, and of the 
fall in the precise manner of it, becomes dark exceed- 
ingly. 

5. But it is thought that a will not seeking supre- 
macy, would be better than one seeking supremacy. I 
answer, it would not be in so high a sense god-like. It 
would not be capable of rendering such tribute to the 
will of God. It is the existence of this crowning, en- 
nobling attribute of will, that qualifies it for rendering 
a tribute to the will of the Supreme. The wills of all 
creatures from the highest to the lowest are qualified 
to give true tribute and loyal subjection to that supreme 


THE WILL 


93 


will because they also are of the same order. It is the 
god-like in man that qualifies him to honor God by 
voluntary subjection to Him. No one serves God with 
that which costs him nothing. The loyal servants of 
God serve him with the costliest offering they have to 
give, even the complete surrender of their wills. Sub- 
j ection to the will, law, throne and government of God 
is significant in the case of those endowed with free 
will, as it is not, and cannot be, in the case of any 
being beneath them. This subjection is voluntary. 
It is not necessitated by anything in the nature of the 
will. The fact that it is, in this high sense voluntary, 
i. e., not necessitated by the nature of the will, even in 
holy beings, gives it its value, its significance, its praise- 
worthiness, its acceptableness before God. 

6. The aspiration of the will, disciplined, subdued, 
instructed, limited, as in God’s economy of nature and 
grace it is and must be, redounds to God’s glory and to 
the highest good of the universe. This view of the 
will as ever seeking the unattainable, may seem to some 
quite inadmissible. But let it be remembered that the 
seeking of the forever unattainable is just that which 
ennobles man and opens limitless vistas of glory and 
hope unspeakable, in the eternity before him. 

This boundlessness of aspiration which belongs to the 
very nature of will, not only explains the history of 
man in all lands and in all ages, and at all stages 
of his progress, but it crowns and completes the heaven 
of his future. It is the key stone of the arch. To be 
forever approaching a never attainable end ; is not 


94 


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this what is set before us as the condition of blessedness 
and hope? If then, in knowledge, power and all kinds 
of excellence redeemed ones ever keep in view the in- 
finite, the limitless ; why should there not be a corres- 
ponding progress toward dominance ? Indeed it might 
justly be argued that there could not but be such pro- 
gress. Progress in other respects would involve this. 
What prominence is given to this in Sripture ! “Ye 
shall he kings and priests ” — “ Ye shall sit with me on 
my throne .” — “ I appoint unto you a kingdom .” — “ Be 
thou ruler over five cities .” — “ Be thou ruler over ten 
cities .” — “ I will make you ruler over many things .” 
These and all like promises, aside from the specific 
meaning which by careful analysis, might be discover- 
ed in each of them, certainly assume, appeal to, and en- 
courage, a native aspiration in all, an aspiration which 
is unquestionably towards dominancy. 

Given a definite number of beings having free will — 
beings differing in power and rank, differing in every 
respect not inconsistent with the perfection of free will 
in each — given these beings and these only, raising no 
question as to how they come into existence, presup- 
posing, as yet, no actual relation between them ; each 
of these myriads of beings having free will; let the 
question now for the first time be raised, “ Whose will 
shall be supreme?” Readily will this question be de- 
cided. The will of the W orthiest, the Best, the High- 
est, must be joyfully accepted by all. That this was 
determined by the very nature of the case, determined 
by the character and standing of these beings and by 


THE WILL 


95 


their relation unto each other is most true ; hut it is 
also true that the enthronement of the supreme will by 
the choice and acclaim of all loyal ones, is not, thereby, 
forbidden, or its significance thereby in any degree les- 
sened. A just choice is always, in this sense, determined 
beforehand by the actual conditions of the case. The 
recognition of these conditions, and the act of choice in 
accordance with them, constitute our whole duty in the 
matter. 

But when many wills accept the will of one as 
supreme they all bow down to Joseph’s sheaf, i. e., 
they all freely surrender what, apart from all else, be- 
longed to each alone. The will in all created beings 
may be likened to flame which ever rises directly up- 
ward ; in perfect calm the least, as well as the greatest, 
a pure and absolutely erect pillar of fire. If then the 
will in all loyal subjects of law bend in subjection to 
one supreme authority, one supreme will, such subjec- 
tion is a true tribute only because in its own nature 
the will did not necessarily bend but stood erect. Pro- 
stration is significant, not in beings created prostrate, 
but in beings created erect and god-like, i. e., with free 
will. U I said ye are gods ” — u if he called them gods .” 
11 Let us make man in our image. 1,1 Only beings that can 
in this sense be called gods, can truly worship God. 

Let it not be thought that this view is inconsistent 
with the utmost harmony. God by his infinitude in 
all perfections is fitted for and, if we may so say, de- 
serves absolute and universal sovereignty. Every 
moral being under God is to have the place he is fitted 


96 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


for. God’s government excludes not, but includes, in 
endless gradation, the government and dominancy of 
all the myriads of beings in their order. Subjects of 
God’s government are not debarred from royalty. 
Nearest to God, the highest subject of law, the Serv- 
ant of God, the Mediator is most obedient and therefore 
most exalted. Nay, infinitely obedient therefore in- 
finitely exalted — teaching us that the path to royalty 
is the lowly one, obedience. After him, and like him, 
all united to him, aspiring to, seeking for, dominion, 
shall reach the place of true royalty, shall be “ made 
hinys and priests unto GodP 

Assuredly that which is sought may well be the ut- 
most attainable ; ever understanding that only by pro- 
per means, and when fitted for dominion shall dominion 
be given. 

Thus even in this life, in the foremost nations of the 
world, the door is ever kept open before all, so that no 
place of dominancy, or supremacy, is ever out of sight. 
Kept open ! Yes, and this open way is not idly or de- 
spairingly gazed upon, but boldly and successfully trod- 
den; yes, here and now, whoso would be “ruler over 
many cities,” “ ruler over many things,” let him de- 
serve to be, and he is not left without hope. Whoso 
would in any way be potent and dominant as a true 
king of men ; let him be “ faithful in the few things,” 
let him trade with the few talents, — he may be, he can 
hardly fail to be, a ruler over many things. These 
happy results, here and now, flowing from the free 
scope which the innate, inextinguishable aspiration to- 


THE WILL 


97 


wards supremacy enjoys — why should not this aspira- 
tion, unerringly directed, lead to best and fairest re- 
sults in the eternal world ? 

The Will free from Invasion and Responsible to God 
Alone. 

“ God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left 
it free from the commandments and ordinances of 
men.” Noble “confession of faith.” Yes, the least 
and the lowliest of mankind, the veriest waif upon 
the street, is free as to his conscience, as to his will. He 
may stand, he does stand erect and defiant against the 
whole world, intrenched in the impregnable though 
frightfully lofty citadel of real freedom of will. He is 
— for so God created him — in the image and after the 
likeness of God. He is — for so God placed him — alone , 
and free from invasion by seraph or demon. “Under 
law ?” Assuredly. But what law so ever he be under, 
whether from heaven or from earth, it must be address- 
ed unto him, and it is, it remains his to judge, decide 
and act, and while he, little, ragged, black, ignorant, 
though he be, judges, decides and acts, angels and de- 
mons, worst and best, mightiest to save or destroy, be- 
hoove to stand silent and powerless, silent, powerless and 
filled with awe and wonder and reverence — stand out- 
side that holy of holies, whereinto not once, with, or 
without blood, entered, or can enter, priest be he never 
so high, save that one who is the High and Lofty One 
himself, who inhabiteth eternity, and whom the heaven 
of heavens cannot contain, and who also claims it as 
7 


98 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


his sole perogative to “search the heart,” aye, to 
“ dwell ” in it as his abode. 

Moral law is the will of God in commandment, and 
it can have no access to philosopher or to waif save 
through the will. The will of God is indeed the source of 
all law. But the will of God as law, moving “ the sun 
in heaven and all the stars,” is POWER and not com- 
mandment; so the will of God as law, moving the 
other and more glorious sun , in the higher heavens that 
shall not pass away" and all the brighter “stars that 
shall shine forever and ever,” is COMMANDMENT, 
mere authority, not force. Government by mere au- 
thority is the ideal government. It shall be fully real- 
ized nowhere short of the heavenly world. 

The infinitude of God renders him the one who “ in- 
habiteth eternity” and filleth immensity. The same 
infinitude is essential to his dwelling in the heart of 
the least and lowliest of those made in his image. May 
we not in some degree see why this is so? It was 
Pascal who said, “ We are mid- way between the infin- 
itely vast and the infinitely little.” To most persons it 
may seem that we are very near to the one and very 
far from the other. Pascal says, “ mid- way.” All ef- 
fort, all experience assuredly says never within reach 
of either. Even as the universe upon which the micro- 
scope is turned gives no sign that it is at all to be more 
thoroughly searched out, or discovered, than that 
upon which the telescope is turned ; so if we look to- 
wards immensity or eternity, nay, if we look towards 
God himself, we at once realize that we are in the pre- 


THE WILL 


99 


sence of the unsearchable ; but when we look toward 
any one created in the image of God, must we not 
clearly realize that there is here also the unsearchable? 
For, do what we may, we can no more “ search out ” or 
“ dwell in ” the heart that God reserves to himself than 
we can search out or dwell in that immensity which 
God claims for his own abode. The image of God, like 
God himself, is unsearchable. 

Mother, look into that pair of eyes that but a few 
weeks ago opened upon the wonders of the present life. 
‘‘Thine?” Yes, thine, truly and in a joyous sense. 
Thine by right and title so holy and indisputable that 
Satan himself might blush to be detected in any effort 
to take from thee thine own. Thine, because thy very 
life throbs in every pulsation of the quick beating 
heart. Mother, thine assuredly. Yet, endure it, for it 
must be said: Not thine. Look once again in those eyes 
and feel and confess that there is near thee a living be- 
ing, thine indeed as fully as any in the wide universe 
can be, yet God’s and in God’s care. God’s in a higher 
sense than thine, and in God’s care infinitely more than 
in thine. “A little stranger ?” Yes, and in a deeper 
sense than they knew who called him so ; for do what 
thou wilt, oh, yearning, loving, self-forgetting mother, 
even thou canst never enter the holy dwelling place 
which God with wondrous skill hath fashioned and 
furnished and fitted for his own abode. Even thou 
canst never enter in, for lo ! it is, it is God’s temple. 
Was it not even so of old? The cunning workmen 
who built the temple could not enter in ; no, not the 


100 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


priests themselves, save the high priest, and he but once 
a year, not without blood, and even he but as a type of 
the true High Priest whose right it is to enter into the 
holiest of all . 

Even the mother with her mother-heart yearning to 
enter in to keep all pure and clean, is fain to stand near 
the door, but never enter in. Even she must know 
that her’s is God’s. To God she gave her own — not 
first at the baptismal font — to God she gave when God 
gave unto her. And now, as days and weeks and years 
pass by, and rosy cheeks are browned with autumn sun 
and autumn winds, she learns — not always an un-pain- 
ful lesson — that what was her’s, is her’s, she can not hold, 
and mold, and guard, and fashion at her will. What 
solace hath she for this not un-painful lesson? What 
balm can cure her heart- ache when her boy, impatient 
of delay, joins his companions in the fray and frolic far 
away, hour after hour, day after day ? Ho solace, no 
balm that earth can furnish. 

Thy boy is thine and God’s. Thou gavest him to 
God. Lift up thy heart to God, the God that dwelleth 
in immensity, the God that dwells with thee ; and say, 
“Oh God, dwell evermore in thine own temple I have 
reared for Thee.” 

Sweet suppliant, thy surrender, not un-painful though 
it were, grows now and ripens into joy unspeakable. 
’Tis better God should claim thy boy. ’Tis better God 
himself should dwell in that dear temple reared by 
thee. Even thy fond mother’s heart could not so well 
keep out the evil and bring in the good. 


THE WILL 


101 


God doth strange things — about him clouds and 
darkness gather oft. Shall it be recorded on the eter- 
nal pages? Shall the angels read it in the eternal 
ages? “ There was on earth a mother who gave to God 
her offspring at its birth, and at the baptismal font 
standing, pale and weak, and prayerful, yet with joy- 
ous, brave, heroic, holy heart, Hook vows' with stead- 
fast purpose and resolve to keep the same ; and every 
day in prayer she gave to God, even while she lived ; 
and as she closed her eyes for her last sleep, she said, 
‘Oh God, the boy I gave to Thee keep as thine own 
temple evermore,’ and yet her boy — her boy — was — 
lost I” .Ah, no! He was HOT lost , for, ere the dying 
mother’s lips had closed, and ere her yearning mother- 
heart had ceased to beat, a voice came down, a whisper 
from the lips whereinto “ grace was 'poured And, all 
the way from earth to heaven, the ransomed spirit to 
itself repeats the answer of her Lord: “Great is thy 
faith , then be it as thou wilt." 

The Will Most Completely Surrendered to God is Left 
in Utmost Honor and Freedom. 

God , whose will alone is law , whose will we are re- 
quired to make THE LAW of our lives , to whose will 
our's must be wholly surrendered , ever leaves the loyal 
will in honor and freedom , and with wide and wondrous 
scope for its proper exercise. The will is not enslaved 
or suppressed, but rather exalted to glorious liberty. 
God admits to “his pavilion” all loyal ones. They 
“ abide under the shadow of the Almighty God is 


102 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


“ The hearer of prayer .” He conducts the universe ac- 
cording to his infinite wisdom, making “all things 
work together for .good” to his own. The will, the 
desire, the whole desire of the loyal may be freely ex- 
pressed in prayer to God. This expression of the 
heart’s desire is itself a precious privilege. Jesus 
prayed in Gethsemane, “If it be possible, let this cup 
pass.” The privilege of praying this prayer, even 
Christ prized. The reality and the significance of the 
free exercise of the loyal will, we may understand and 
appreciate, even though we are unable to understand 
how the mighty universe can be so pliant to the Su- 
preme will that the expressed desire of the lowliest 
loyal heart may be “ regarded.” With the infinitude 
of God’s power and wisdom full in view, let no one 
say it is incredible. It is God, not law merely, that is 
working in all things, and He “ worketh all things 
according to the good pleasure of HIS WILL.” 

James Renwick, the last of the Scottish martyrs, 
desired that his mother might be spared the horrid 
sight of his hands “ nailed to the Nether Bow Port." 
He pleaded for this in prison. God assured him his 
prayer was heard. In his last interview with his 
mother he assured her of this. Mary Boyd, who 
lived a saintly life, prayed that she might not be a 
charge or burden to her friends at death. She rose 
from a quiet night’s rest, looked forth upon the morn- 
ing, then sank into that sleep which shall last till the 
trumpet sounds. These prayers were offered up from 
loyal, true and tender hearts, in Christ-like, holy, tender, 


THE WILL 


108 


unselfish regard for others. Is it credible that the 
Ruler of the Universe should pay any regard to desires 
and prayers like these ? It is not, unless a Person of 
of infinite power, by law , which is merely His will , 
governs the universe. All difficulty as to this, requir- 
ing change of plan, or interference with laws and 
forces now working, vanishes when we reflect that all 
was not merely foreseen, hut pre-determined. If it be 
credible that the greatest event should be provided for, 
it is equally credible that the least should be. The 
greatest could not be if the least were not. Time is 
for us. What prayer God hears now He heard from 
eternity. God is not emotional. These and all like 
desires and prayers, with all the reasons for regarding 
them , were eternally present to the Divine Mind. The 
God revealed in Christ, not the God that human im- 
agination constructs, is the hearer of prayer. W e are 
asked to be content with the “ reflex influence of 
prayer.” “We cannot, indeed, pull the great vessel 
nearer to us, but we may pull our little boat toward 
the great vessel.” Ah ! Take away the direct, and you 
destroy the reflex: rather, the reflex never comes into 
existence except as it follows the direct. Baal’s proph- 
ets had “reflex influence,” but it availed them nothing. 
They “cried, but there was none that heard or re- 
garded.” Shall we admit that the same is true of all 
who cry to God, and pour out their hearts before Him? 
Ho, not Jacob alone, but all praying ones are bre vetted 
Israel, for they all, as princes, have “ power with God, 
and prevail .” 











PART II 


ATONEMENT 






























CHAPTER I 


NO SALVATION WITHOUT ATONEMENT 

The hope of salvation, or of exemption from limit- 
less evil, without atonement, is a hope that is based 
upon the unsupported assumption that law in the 
moral universe, unlike law in the natural, can be vio- 
lated with impunity, or that its penalty may, in some 
way, be mitigated or modified. Nature, as well as 
Revelation, does indeed uniformly indicate the one 
only way of escape for those exposed to evil from the 
operation of forces obeying law. But nature’s teach- 
ings are, for the most part, unheeded or misinterpreted. 
What he is to do who finds himself exposed to evil 
from the operation of natural law, man readily and 
clearly sees. Knowing that law in the natural world 
is absolute, invariable and no respecter of persons, 
knowing that he is actually in the way of the on-com- 
ing power of law, he never waits to make careful 
estimate of the measure of his responsibility for being 
found thus exposed. He never debates the ques- 
tion of original or actual transgression. It is enough 
for him to see and understand that law is against him, 
and that law will not be mocked or turned aside from 


108 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


its aim. At the same time he sees, instantly and 
clearly, that there is one, and but one, door of hope. 
It is not that law shall be suspended, or its penalties in 
any manner modified or mitigated ; but that in some 
way there may be the intervention of some agency able 
to deal with the forces that are coming against him. 
In this way nature and Scripture speak to us with one 
voice. In both the reign of absolute and inviolable 
law is uniformly, and even awfully, proclaimed. In 
both the one only provision for escape is, not obscurely, 
indicated. The prevalent presumption that the case of 
the sinner is not necessarily hopeless, is justified by 
what is taught us in nature and in providence, as well 
as by a deeply rooted sentiment in the minds of all 
men who have ever risen to anything approaching a 
just conception of the character of God. But the pre- 
sumption that the violator of law may escape by the 
mere non-execution of the penalty, is one that has 
nothing to support it. Whatever might be in store for 
the violator of law who should merely escape the de- 
served penalty, must necessarily fall short of salvation. 
Be it what it may, it could not amount to blessedness. 
The possibility of blessedness depends upon the possi- 
bility of satisfying fully the demands of the eternal and 
changeless law of righteousness. The hope which a 
conscious violator of law cherishes, that he shall, by 
mere escape from penalty, attain to bliss, or even 
escape from limitless and endless evil or unhappiness, 
is a hope that is built upon vacuity itself. The bliss he 
can thus look forward to is, to all rational minds, sim- 


NO SALVATION WITHOUT ATONEMENT 109 


ply the blackness of darkness and eternal despair. 
No one whose moral sensibilities have not been fright- 
fully perverted or impaired could possibly desire that 
bliss which is in store for a mere culprit who should 
successfully escape the penalty due to him. Multitudes 
of half-instructed persons, it is to be feared, see nothing 
more in redemption by Christ than mere hope of 
escape from penalty. Too much ground has been 
given for this horrible caricature of the way of 
salvation, by the many theories of Atonement that 
have been, with wonderful ingenuity and toil, arrayed 
against the one only theory which either Scripture, 
Nature, or Conscience can at all accept. 

No salvation, no blessedness, no hope of exemption 
from limitless evil or unhappiness, is possible while the 
sentence of the law remains. This may be clearly 
seen by any person who will consent to look the ques- 
tion fairly in the face. Once recognized, the whole 
question of man’s destiny is narrowed down to this : 
Can Atonement, in any way, be made ? Can “ man be 
just with God?” In fact, the question, Can there be 
salvation for fallen man ? resolves itself into the ques- 
tion, Can there be atonement for sin ? resolves itself 
into this one question and no other. 

The momentousness of this question none can fail 
to see; for if no atonement be possible, there is an 
end to all discussion ; we are face to face with utter 
despair. If our conception of law be such that, trans- 
gression having occurred, no atonement is possible, 
then are we not merely in the rapids, where frantic 


110 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


exertions are not wholly out of place, but gliding 
over the smooth curve of the cataract itself, where 
exertion is manifestly useless. 

The one ray of hope for our fallen race is the possi- 
bility of atonement. The more carefully and pro- 
foundly all the elements of the case are considered, the 
more clearly will this appear. Therefore, the question 
of atonement becomes the one question which out- 
ranks every other, and claims our most profound atten- 
tion. Atonement, and eternal life. No atonement, in- 
evitable and eternal death. No ingenuity, no device 
of ours can change the status. We may close our 
eyes and rush wildly to and fro, but Ebal and Gerizim 
remain in all their grandeur. And this is the situation 
aside from all question of the truth or falsity of any 
written word on earth. Law violated, no satisfaction 
being rendered for such violation, ensures condemnation 
— rather, the violator of law is “ condemned already.” 
His condemnation lingers not an instant. It comes not 
after, but with the transgression. It is not so much 
future as present condemnation that conscious violators 
of law should be concerned for. If not under con- 
demnation already, they have nothing to fear at death, 
nor in the world to come. From this condemnation 
there is no possible way of escape or deliverance that 
does not include the entire satisfaction of law. 

The prevalent notion that justice is but a morning 
cloud, which may be swept away by some favorable 
breeze of sentiment, is one which itself must vanish ; 
while justice shall stand like the eternal mountains. 


NO SALVATION WITHOUT ATONEMENT 111 


But many who do not mean to deny the existence of 
law, imagine that the Supreme Lawgiver does not 
always and necessarily administer law precisely as it 
is, but, like an earthly monarch, or even more than an 
earthly monarch, may dispense with the law, may 
relax its penalties, may administer law leniently. It 
is thought that to represent God as administering law 
always with exactness, is to represent him as a being 
destitute of those traits of character which are most 
admired in an earthly monarch. It is probable that 
there is no one misconception more prevalent, more 
harmful in its tendency, or, it may added, more inex- 
cusable. Law which may be relaxed could not have 
been law that was holy, and just, and good. Law is 
not the expression of some, but of all the divine per- 
fections. Law does not stand as a barrier to the exer- 
cise of the utmost goodness of God — a barrier which 
must be removed before mercy can be exercised. If, 
indeed, it seem to be terrible exceedingly that there 
should be, everywhere, law, absolute, exacting and un- 
yielding, reflect how immeasurably dismal, hopeless, and 
chaotic would be the universe — if universe there could 
be — were law, according to thy mind, somewhat accom- 
modating to certain violators ? Bethink thee, 0 man, 
that just in this bracing, reassuring, all-regulating 
power of exact and invariable law is centered whatso- 
ever of confidence or hopefulness there is to be found 
in the universe ; for law that is, indeed, and that it is fit 
should be, terrible to evil-doers, is also a praise to them 
that do well. It could not be the one if it were not the 


112 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


other. All the law-abiding owe every hope they cherish, 
as well as every cup of bliss they enjoy, to the invari- 
ableness, exactness and absoluteness of law. And 
even the conscious violators of law, were they clear- 
visioned, would look nowhere else with faintest hope or 
thought of good to themselves. It is incredible that 
the violator of law should have satisfactory assur- 
ance that the penalty would never be inflicted. The 
presumption that law would sometime claim and obtain 
its own, would ever detract from any assurance that 
might be given. 

But conceding, for the the moment, that assurance 
the most explicit should be given by the Supreme 
Law-giver Himself, this assurance could not lay the 
foundation for peace and blessedness. For conscience 
would still be unappeased and unsatisfied, and would 
forevermore condemn. Conscience can be satisfied 
only when law is satisfied. Exact justice alone satis- 
fies conscience; but exact justice is all that law de- 
mands. The dream of salvation by some kind of 
escape from justice is the vainest of dreams that 
mortal man can indulge. Admit that law could be 
kept at bay forevermore — its thunders hushed, its 
fiery rage shut up in the bosom of that blackest and 
broadest of storm-clouds that overspreads the sky, 
and meets evermore the upturned eye of every con- 
scious violator of law ; yet, who will give to thee peace 
of conscience ? Look well to thy estate. Guard now 
the citadel of thy peace. Place at thy gates a guard 
of mighty ones, pledged to allow no solitary messenger 


NO SALVATION WITHOUT ATONEMENT 113 


of vengeance to enter. Make thy guards invincible 
and incorruptible. Without, indeed, the thunders of 
vengeance mutter and roll, echo and re-echo, but thou 
art safe ! Law, justice, vengeance — the hand of Om- 
nipotence holds these in perpetual arrest ! 

Hast thou now assured peace, bliss unalloyed ? The 
same Almighty Lawgiver who gave forth law to all 
the universe, law large and broad and written on 
every page of the great volume of Nature, as well as 
in holy Scripture, placed within thee Conscience, a 
perfect mirror, which reflects the whole law of God in 
what way so ever revealed ; Conscience, which always 
says, Whatsoever the law of God commands, that do ; 
so that what time the law from heaven condemns, the 
law within condemns also. Could the claims of the 
law from heaven remain unsatisfied, the claims of law 
within would also remain unsatisfied, and conscience 
could not but perpetually accuse and condemn. Con- 
science is indestructible. All there is of man, conscience 
destroyed, would be less than man. By atonement, or 
the satisfaction of the law, alone can conscience be 
satisfied. Conscience is justice. Law is justice. Neither 
law nor conscience has anything to do except inside 
the limits of justice. The empires of both are in all 
points coincident. Conscience may be, in comparison 
with law, as the very smallest, in comparison with the 
largest conceivable circle. But the circle of conscience, 
and that of law, are concentric; so that every radius 
of the one is also a radius of the other. “ If our heart 
condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and know- 
8 


114 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


eth all things.” u The spirit of a man is the candle of 
the Lord, searching the inward parts.” Conscience 
requires for its own satisfaction that law be satisfied. 
Conscience, in its very nature, will forever take the 
side of God’s law against us as light is given to it. 
Atonement, so called, which confessedly does not fully 
satisfy law, can not fully satisfy the conscience. For 
conscience is not merely satisfied when law is satisfied, 
but because law is satisfied. If this manifest truth were 
not overlooked, not only could there be no hope of 
salvation without atonement, no hope of atonement by 
the violator of law, but no dream of atonement by any 
one not able to render, not actually rendering, full 
satisfaction to the utmost demands of law. 


CHAPTEE II 


NO ATONEMENT BY THE VIOLATOR OF LAW 

The opposers of the doctrine of the atonement, as 
revealed in Scripture, and maintained by the Christian 
Church in all ages, base their objection mainly on the 
ground that the law, in its nature, does not admit a 
substitute to act in the room of another, either in ren- 
dering obedience to the precept, or in enduring the 
penalty; and, therefore, the only atonement possible 
must be atonement made by the sinner himself ; the 
only righteousness ever to be obtained must be his own 
work. This objection to the Christian scheme of re- 
demption is the one objection which, in various forms, 
pervades the entire literature of the unbelieving world. 

All admit that man is a violator of law. None have 
been able to show how man can make full satisfaction 
for past offences, nor how he can render perfect obedi- 
ence in the future. Confident that atonement, to be 
made at all, must be made by the violator of law him- 
self, and that obedience, to be acceptable and reckoned 
to him for righteousness, must be made by man in 
his own person, many deliberately prefer to rely upon 
an acknowledgedly imperfect atonement, by the sinner 


116 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


himself, and a confessedly imperfect obedience, all his 
own, rather than upon a perfect atonement and a spot- 
less obedience, rendered by another in his stead. 

The proposition as stated above, on which objec- 
tion to the atonement is based, assumes, as true, two 
propositions, which not only are not proven, but are 
without support. First, it is assumed that the vio- 
lator of law, man for instance, can in some way atone 
for a past offence, and that he can, even in a state of 
unrighteousness, render acceptable obedience to the law 
of God. Second, It is assumed that law in its nature 
does not admit a substitute to act for another in pay- 
ing the penalty due for crime. 

These assumptions, so confidently made, are both 
gratuitous. They are the exact opposite of the truth. 
The violator of law can make no atonement, can render 
no acceptable obedience. On the contrary, law provides 
for atonement by any adequate substitute. Law, as 
understood and administered by men, admits a substi- 
tute in every case in which an every way fit and ade- 
quate substitute is offered. 

No violator of law can , in his own person, make 
atonement for such violation , nor can he thereafter ren- 
der acceptable obedience to the law of God. 

1. A single violation of law has rendered him un- 
righteous. “ He that offends in one point is guilty of 
all.” “ Sin is the transgression of the law.” Right- 
eousness is not to be thought of as having degrees. As a 
straight line is the shortest distance between two points, 
the least conceivable departure from the rectitude re- 


NO ATONEMENT BY THE VIOLATOR OF LAW 117 


quired by the divine law is unrighteousness. The fall 
of our race is represented in Scripture as resulting 
from, or rather, consisting in, a single act of disobedi- 
ence. The fall of an individual, or of a race, could 
occur in no other way. Before the one offence man 
was righteous ; after it, unrighteous. Before the one 
act of disobedience he stood ; after it, he was fallen. 
Fallen how far? Far as it was possible to fall ; even 
from the plane of righteousness to that of unrighteous- 
ness. Deeper depths of actual degradation, ruin, woe, 
misery, despair, remorse, there might be, but more com- 
plete loss of righteousness, more complete severance of 
right relation to law, there could not be. Law is one. 
A living being attacked by violence to any one of its 
members is itself attacked. But law is one, in a higher 
sense than that in which the body of a living being is 
one. Law is one, not as as the body is one and has 
many members, but as the soul is one and has many 
faculties. The breaking of one precept of the law is 
breaking of the law, because the whole force of law 
concentrates itself in every precept. Every 'precept is 
a focus in which every ray of law meets. The author- 
ity of the lawgiver is in every precept of law, so that the 
violation of a single precept is the repudiation of the 
law. But law, as it is one, is not rightly apprehended 
unless we consider its relation to the Lawgiver. Law 
is the will of God in the form of commandment ad- 
dressed unto the subjects of law, not merely a princi- 
ple of action within them. The supreme question is 
ever the question of subjection to the divine will. Law 


118 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


can reach, man only in the form of specific precept. In 
specific precept is the meeting of the will of the Creator 
and Lawgiver with the will of the creature, the subject 
of law. But the meeting of two wills is the meeting 
of two beings. The entire authority of God was ex- 
pressed in specific precept ; the entire loyalty of man 
should have been signified in obedience to specific pre- 
cept. In the simplest precept addressed to the subject 
of law, a full and face to face meeting occurs between 
the Lawgiver and the subject of law. 

Law is not to be thought of as something issued forth 
from God, which is found dispersed throughout his 
empire as a kind of all-pervading ether, or a subtle 
power existing of itself and apart from God. Law is 
from God as its source, but not from him in the sense 
that it is, or can be, separate from him. Law in every 
precept that reaches us comes fresh and direct from 
God : rather God himself, by the precept, comes to us. 
Law is not merely something sent from God to 
us, it is God’s approach unto us. God’s will, the ex- 
pression of his infinite perfections, takes the form of 
law; that is, precept addressed to us. Law is not God; 
it is God’s speaking unto man. Law is God’s voice, 
God’s authority addressed unto us in the one form pos- 
sible to be understood or obeyed by us, viz., precept. 

The complete loss of righteousness is the just penalty 
annexed to a single act of disobedience, penalty always 
instantly inflicted, penalty which falls wfth lightning- 
like stroke ; natural and unavoidable sequence and 
righteous penalty at one and the same time. 


NO ATONEMENT BY THE VIOLATOR OF LAW 119 


2. Law requires righteousness of character before it 
requires, before it can accept, as righteous, any pro- 
posed acts. It requires that we be righteous ; not mere- 
ly that we do this or that good deed. Nor must it be 
thought that law requires righteousness of character 
solely because this is essential to righteous acts. It is 
true, there can be no righteous act except by a person 
who is righteous. But our conception of the real de- 
mands of the law is defective if we fail to regard it, 
first of all, as requiring righteousness of character. The 
unrighteous are not only condemned by law and 
by their own conscience, they are disqualified for ren- 
dering any truly acceptable obedience to law, and 
much more for any act which should have merit as 
atoning for a past offence. 

3. The obligations of the law are continuous , leaving 
no interval in which any act could be performed which 
could be regarded as atonement for a past offence. 

4. The law requires of every subject of law the ut- 
most he is able to render ; so that no moral being is 
able to exceed, in any instance, the real requirements 
of the divine law. If holy beings can not exceed the 
requirements of the divine law, how can violators of 
law hope to do so ? 

5. Law is mandatory as regards the payment of pen- 
alty, therefore voluntariness is an essential element in 
the one case as in the other, so that neither pas- 
sive involuntary sufferings endured, nor mere willing- 
ness to endure sufferings inflicted, but sufferings volun- 
tarily rendered, can satisfy law. This fact alone ren- 


120 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


ders the notion of atonement by the violator of law a 
manifest absurdity. 

Law, even as administered by man, regards motive 
or intention so far as practicable. In a large class of 
instances it is assumed that those on whom law’s de- 
mands come will comply with them only when and in 
so far as constrained to do so. It is assumed that the 
criminal will do all he can to escape, or if this can not 
be, to mitigate the penalty. This is regarded as a 
kind of reserved right of every criminal. The law 
which demanded voluntary obedience to the precept 
is regarded as putting forth no demand for voluntary 
payment of penalty. 

The question arises, Can the law be satisfied with 
that which is obtained from a culprit by force and 
against his will ? or, Can he be said to have rendered 
to the law anything, who not only did not design or 
endeavor to render anything, but who designed and 
endeavored to the utmost of his ability to escape law’s 
demands altogether ? 

Involuntary sufferings not only do not satisfy law ; 
they render absolutely nothing unto the law. The pros- 
ecuting attorney, the sheriff, the witness, the jury, 
the judge, the jailor, the executioner, may each be re- 
garded as rendering something to the demands of of- 
fended justice and to the express requirement of the 
law ; the criminal not anything at all. Law in its 
real demands made upon the violator of law is in no 
sense satisfied by this too familiar process sometimes 
called the paying of the penalty of violated law. 


NO ATONEMENT BY THE VIOLATOR OF LAW 121 


Law in its precept requires voluntariness in every 
instance. This element is essential to all obedience. 
When the subject of law becomes a transgressor, 
does he thereby change his relation to law, so that now 
his will is not under law ? Bather, is it not manifest 
that a requirement of law must, in its very nature, 
bear upon the will first of all? A requirement of 
law can not be merely that something be suffered. It 
must be that something be done. If the specific re- 
quirement of the law be suffering, regard must ever 
be had to activity and voluntariness even in such re- 
quirement of law. In what sense can he be said to 
have fulfilled law who merely suffered, i. e., who was 
passive, i. e., who did nothing ? How can the in- 
flicting of suffering upon him without and against 
his will be regarded as fulfillment of law BY him ? 

Besides, if we look steadfastly at law, as it proceeds 
from its source, the will of the Infinite Lawgiver, we 
may clearly discover that it is, in its entireness, Com- 
mandment ; and therefore voluntariness is an essential 
element in every case of conformity to law, whether 
as regards precept or penalty. The obedience of 
Christ, in his suffering for our sin, is thought of as re- 
quired, indeed, by a divine commandment ; but this 
commandment is by many regarded as arbitrary, ex- 
ceptional, and unique, and not as arising from the fact 
that law in its very nature requires voluntary active 
obedience in fulfilling all its obligations; as well in 
the payment of penalty as in keeping the precept. 
Whereas the commandment which Christ received 


122 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


was commandment to do that which law in its nature 
required of the violator of law, not commandment 
merely to place himself in a condition in which cer- 
tain sufferings should be inflicted, not a mere willing- 
ness to be punished, but voluntariness and activity in 
doing and suffering what the law required. 

It will readily be admitted that law addressed to 
all loyal subjects is commandment, and requires vol- 
untary obedience. Law accepts of them nothing but 
that which is voluntarily rendered. Transgression 
of law having occurred, what does law require? 
what now are its demands ? May the subject of law 
now discharge his whole obligation to law by becom- 
ing passive or even resistant ? 

By whom is the demand of law to be met ? The 
violator of law by becoming such is in no respect re- 
leased from the law as commandment, rather the com- 
mandment now becomes infinitely more exacting. 
What now is the real and full demand of the law ? Is 
it not this : Pay that thou owest, Penalty first, then 
Obedience to the precept. Among men, indeed, law, 
to get its due, is fain to look elsewhere than the cul- 
prit, even to those yet loyal subjects whose wills are 
accessible and who are the deputed executors of the 
law. But anything thus obtained is to be credited to 
the willing subjects of law. If exactions by force 
from the unwilling were credited to them as though 
voluntarily rendered, the most abandoned of suf- 
ferers would, as the years, centuries and cycles of their 
sufferings pass, be gradually reducing the debt they 


NO ATONEMENT BY THE VIOLATOR OF LAW 123 


owe to the law, and this without design on their part. 

Not mere willingness to suffer, but active and will- 
ing endurance, and this for the honor of the law 
and out of regard to what is due to the Lawgiver, sat- 
isfies law. Willingness of a lower kind , or on lower 
grounds, comes not up to the plain requirement of the 
law. 

But how vain would it be to expect of the violator 
of law, unrighteous, and by necessity growing worse 
and worse every hour, such willingness as the law re- 
quires? This would be indeed looking for sweet 
water from a bitter fountain, expecting to bring a 
clean thing out of an unclean, waiting to gather figs 
of thistles, groping for grapes among the thorns. 

Atonement by involuntary sufferings, is a manifest 
absurdity. The expectation, the dream of it is proof of 
man’s blindness and infatuation. To turn towards the 
adorable Lawgiver whom he has offended, from 
whom he has withdrawn his allegiance, and while 
straining every power to escape the demands of the law, 
overtaken by some just penalty inflicted by the right- 
eous administrator of law, either directly or in connec- 
tion with the misdeeds of the culprit himself, with 
immeasurable effrontery to hold up in his face this 
suffering, thus inflicted, and make a virtue of the part 
he had in it, i. e., the involuntary suffering of it, as in 
any way, of the nature of atonement, is but to exemplify 
the desperateness of man’s estate of depravity and the 
depth of his spiritual blindness. Do men indeed imagine 
that their sufferings for sin, justly inflicted, are of the 


124 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


nature of atonement and satisfy law so that by these 
alone men, in this life, or in the next, may at length 
get back into favor and be even with the law? Yes, 
this monstrous absurdity multitudes declare they be- 
lieve. This undeniable fact is the only excuse for 
or justification of an argument in proof of a proposi- 
tion which the right-minded, clear-minded, unbiased 
accept as self-evident. 

Atonement by the violator of law, since it involves 
the monstrous dogma of supererogation, and that by 
the consciously fallen and unrighteous, is condemed at 
the bar of reason. 

The absurdity of the notion of atonement by the 
violator of law, can be clearly demonstrated from the 
nature of law itself, and from the estate of the violator 
of law as unrighteous. Such demonstration may have 
weight with persons not so readily moved by the as- 
sertion of man’s actual inability to make atonement. 
The prejudice against the severe teachings of Scrip- 
ture and of the orthodox creeds respecting fallen man’s 
inability to save himself, or to do any really good 
work, is largely owing to the fact that this inability 
has been regarded by those who asserted and those 
who denied it as anomalous, peculiar, or exceptional, 
and not as arising from the operation of a well ascer- 
tained law which severe and exact science cannot dare 
to call in question : No violator of law can possibly 
make atonement for his offence , nor can he thereafter ren- 
der any acceptable obedience. 

The severity of this law is not even a shadow of a 


NO ATONEMENT BY TIIE VIOLATOR OF LAW 125 


presumption against it. For moral like natural law is 
characterized by utmost exactness and severity, and is 
beneficent, not in spite of, but because of this severity. 
When men find they can “take fire in the bosom and 
not be burned,” it will be time to dream of moral 
government wherein rebellion, wherein a single act of 
rebellion, may be allowed to pass unvisited with de- 
served penalty. From such government noble and 
heroic souls might well pray to be delivered. The 
significance of obedience, the motive to obedience, 
the very virtuousness of obedience, must necessarily 
vanish under any government in which rebellion in- 
volves no loss of standing, works no forfeiture of right 
or privilege. Government with praise for them that 
do well, government with “rewards of merit,” and 
with these alone, ever finds, as it deserves to find, its 
praise contemned, and its rewards of merit despised 
and trampled under foot ; nor is its praise any the less 
contemned, nor are its rewards of merit any the less 
despised when mere threatenings devoid of terror are 
conspicuously arrayed over against them. “ In the day 
that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” This 
were indeed idle threatening were it true that man 
after transgression were spiritually alive and able, not 
merely to render acceptable obedience, but to make 
atonement. 

Atonement by the violator of law is the castle in 
the air. Into this castle neither man nor devil shall 
enter. Sound of footstep shall never be heard on its 
threshold, nor voice of song in its halls. Silence, eter- 


126 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


' nal silence reigns in this castle from foundation to tur- 
ret. It is the mockery of fools for evermore ; this 
. only and nothing more.. 









CHAPTER III 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 

Realizing that there is an eternal and changeless 
law or standard of righteousness which proceeds, not 
from a supposed impersonal and self-existent “ Nature 
of things,” but from the “one only living and true 
God,” as his will in commandment addressed always 
and necessarily unto the subject of law; realizing that 
all men, as violators of law, are without hope of salva- 
tion except by atonement, and that being unrighteous 
they are wholly incapacitated for making atonement ; 
the question, Can atonement be made by a substitute ? 
becomes a question deserving and demanding most 
profound attention. For if atonement by the sinner 
be a manifest impossibility, atonement, perfect atone- 
ment for the sinner is also an impossibility, unless 
substitution be a normal provision of law, unless law 
in its own nature provide for substitution and for 
atonement thereby. But law, in its whole range and 
extent, and in all the ways in which it is made known 
to us, reveals wondrous provision for substitution, 
which at once opens the door of hope to the fallen, 
and the door of opportunity to the unfallen. 


128 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


There are, indeed, many who are esteemed orthodox 
and evangelical who conceive of the scheme of re- 
demption, as something we owe the exercise of the 
“ dispensing power,” to the “ relaxation of the law ” 
on the part of the Supreme Lawgiver. It is assumed 
that in accepting Christ as our substitute to make 
atonement for us, there was a “ relaxation of the law,” 
“ a high exercise of the dispensing power ” or “ of sov- 
ereign prerogative in substituting person for person ;” 
the administrator of law causing it to yield somewhat 
its demands in admitting any substitute, even the most 
perfect, even Christ Himself; and that this was so 
great a “departure from the ordinary course of jus- 
tice ” that it could not but have a “most injurious ef- 
fect in weakening the sense of moral obligation were 
it often repeated,” and that the work of Christ in our 
behalf, since it was not what the law demanded, since 
it was “ an equivalent and not the very thing demand- 
ed,” “ did not thoroughly discharge the obligation,” 
“ might have been rejected,” but “ was accepted” and 
was “ regarded as a satisfaction.” This is fatal to the 
doctrine of atonement. For if mercy may be shown 
without atonement, atonement was not necessary, and 
Christ died in vain. 

Law in its own nature provides for, admits and is 
fully satisfied with an adequate substitute. Law admits 
a substitute in every case in which an every way ade- 
quate substitute is offered, whether to render obedience 
to the precept, or to meet the penalty for violation of 
law. This is true of law as understood and adminis- 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


129 


tered by men in all ages and in all lands. Substitu- 
tion among men is indeed confined to a narrow limit, 
but this is wholly owing to the fact that man is not 
qualified to be a substitute for his fellow-man, except 
in those cases in which the obligations he is required 
to meet, whether fulfilling the precept or suffering the 
penalty, be such that he may assume, meet and dis- 
charge them in consistency with his already existing 
obligations and duties. Although restricted in this 
way, and for this manifest reason, substitution true and 
proper has ever been familiar to all men. The in- 
numerable and varied exemplifications of substitution 
do abundantly prove that substitution is admissible, is 
provided for in the very nature of law. For the same 
principles which prevail in the lowest, prevail also in 
the highest spheres of the vast empire of law. 

Law, as understood and administered by men in all 
lands and in all ages, has provided for and admitted 
substitution in at least the following four classes of in- 
stances: 1st. Work for the public benefit, re- 

quired by law, of able and qualified citizens within 
the limits of a certain age, may be performed by any 
substitute who is free from like obligation, will- 
ing, and able. 

2. By universal consent even military service re- 
quired for the defense of the country, may be rendered 
by any substitute offered who is himself free from the 
same obligation, who is, for any reason, willing and 
ready to act as a substitute and is able to perform the 
service required. Such substitute entering the ranks, 
9 


130 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


should he fall in the first engagement, nothing more is 
required of him in whose behalf he enlisted. “ His, la- 
bors, his dangers, his wounds, his death, are vicar- 
ious,” and do fully satisfy the requirements of law, as 
law has in all ages been understood and administered 
by men. 

3. Even in the case of crime , law, as understood and 
administered by men in all lands, provides that the 
penalty may be met by a substitute, in all cases in 
which the penalty prescribed is such that a substitute 
may meet it consistently with the obligations he is al- 
ready under. 

4. So also in the case of debt , which is obligation 
unto law, a substitute is always admitted. A surety, 
who is always a true and proper substitute, when he 
discharges the obligation does “ ipso facto ” release the 
debtor and fully satisfy law. 

In each of the above four classes of instances ad- 
duced there is undeniable substitution. The wonder- 
ful fact, deserving more respectful and more profound 
attention than it has hitherto received, whether by be- 
liever or unbeliever, is that in all these cases accord- 
ing to the judgment of mankind with as yet no dis- 
senting voice, it is admitted that there is entire satisfac- 
tion of law. No one has cried out*that law and justice 
were cheated, the innocent taken and the guilty al- 
lowed to escape. The innocent and they alone can be 
taken. Innocence, so far as that one matter is con- 
cerned, is essential to all suretyship or substitution. 

But every objection raised against the doctrine of 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


131 


Christ’s substitution might with equal reason be 
brought against every instance of substitution among 
men. There is no principle involved in the substitution 
of Christ, that is not found in substitution as exempli- 
fied among men. 

Objection to the substitution of Christ arises from 
the fact that his work in its glorious perfection cannot 
readily be apprehended ; while that of the surety for 
debt can be clearly seen. W e can readily see how a 
surety may fully satisfy the law by meeting the re- 
quirements of a given bond or note, but with great 
difficulty, and never , without heavenly illumination, 
can men be brought to see clearly that Christ quite as 
fully satisfies all we owe unto the law of God as a surety 
satisfies a given obligation bond or note. 

The satisfaction rendered by Christ no one of the 
saved can fully comprehend. The ransom price paid 
for our redemption God alone can fully estimate ; but 
all the saved should know and understand that this sat- 
isfaction is every way perfect, and they may be all the 
more convinced that it is perfect because they are un- 
able to comprehend or estimate it. If the satisfaction 
which Christ offers could be fully comprehended or 
estimated by men, it would fall short of what God’s 
law requires. Even those denominations that in their 
doctrinal and theological works most furiously assail 
the “ Satisfactionists ” for maintaining in their creed 
that “ Christ did make a proper, real and full satisfac- 
tion to God’s justice ” in behalf of his redeemed, can- 
not repress the Christian sentiment of the millions of 


132 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


their own people, for they will sing : “ Jesus paid it 
all , all to him I owe .” This is the satisfaction theory 
in all its length and breadth. This voice of the Chris- 
tian heart, — a voice that would never have been 
heard echoing and re-echoing through Christendom, 
but for what Dr. Hodge calls a “ happy sacrifice of 
logic ” — is as the voice of many waters ; so that the 
shrill discordant notes of the logical and consistent 
advocates either of the “ governmental,” or the “ moral 
influence ” theory, are scarcely distinguishable when 
this grand anthem swells up from the deep sea of Chris- 
tian faith and Christian experience. 

SECTION FIRST 

Obligation of Law always upon the Person 

Obligation of law is always upon the person and 
can be discharged only by the person on whom it 
originally rested, or by one who consents to assume 
his place and become his substitute. Turrettine and 
theologians after him to our day have maintained that 
there is an essential difference between substitution 
in the case of suretyship for debt and substitution for 
crime. “ This distinction holds between a pecuniary 
and a penal indebtedness. For in a pecuniary debt 
the payment of the thing owed ipso facto liberates the 
debtor from all obligations whatsoever, because here 
the point is not who pays , but what is paid. Hence 
the creditor, the payment being accepted, is never said 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


133 


to extend toward the debtor any indulgence or remis- 
sion, because he has received all that was owed him. 
But the case is different with respect to a penal debt, 
because in this case the obligation respects the person 
as well as the thing ; the demand is upon the person 
who pays as well as the thing paid ; i. e., that the pen- 
alty should be suffered by the person sinning ; for as 
the law demands personal and proper obedience, so it 
exacts personal enduring of the penalty.”* 

“Hence pecuniary satisfaction differs from penal 
thus: In debt, the demand terminates upon the 
thing due. In crime, the legal demand for punishment 
is upon the person of the criminal”.f 

Debt is obligation upon the person as fully and man- 
ifestly as is obligation in the case of penalty for viola- 
tion of law. The point is always not merely “ what is 
paid” but “ who pays” Debt can be paid only by the 
debtor, or by one who becomes his substitute or surety 
and thereby becomes the debtor. Loose and untenable 
notions have been held and taught regarding this mat- 
ter, by persons high in place. It is a mistake to sup- 
pose that money, coming from what quarter it may, 
pays a debt. Ho amount of money legally discharges 
a debt unless it come from the debtor himself, or 
from some one who offers himself as the substitute of 
the debtor, in which case he becomes the debtor. Should 
it rain sovereigns from morn till night, the note held 
by the creditor would be unsatisfied. Money given 


*Turretin, Locus XIV. Quaestio 10. fTho Atonement, p. 38. Hodge. 


134 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


to pay a debt must be given by one who is a substitute 
— one who in reality takes the place and acts in the 
room of the debtor, i. e., one who voluntarily becomes 
the debtor. Any one desiring to pay a debt for am 
other shall never be able to find any other way of do- 
ing this but by consenting to be a true, proper and 
real substitute for the one whose debt he would pay, a 
substitute in the fullest sense of the term, so far as that 
one matter is concerned. To sign an obligation which 
begins “ We or either of us promise to pay ” is to give 
formal consent by covenant engagement, to be regard- 
ed and dealt with as a substitute. To endorse a note 
is to consent to stand as a substitute in the very place 
where the full weight of the obligation falls. If this 
be not substitution then substitution is impossible. 

That there is true and proper substitution in every 
case in which a debt is paid by any other than the 
original debtor, even though the formalities of consti- 
tuting this suretyship, involving substitution, be of 
the simplest kind — and such suretyship can never be 
effected and debt be paid by another without formali- 
ties which do clearly signify agreement and the assur- 
ing of obligation — cannot be denied by any person 
who candidly and carefully considers this matter. Let 
thousands of persons lavish money most liberally upon 
the holder of a given note or bond, till by their 
bounty he is made the richest man on the continent; 
let no one of them indicate in any way, for whom, or 
in whose behalf, this is done ; the debt is not 'paid. 
Money does not pay debts, it is money from a certain 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


135 


definitely named party, viz. : the debtor, or his substi- 
tute, who in this case is regarded and treated as the 
debtor, who, in fact, becomes the debtor. To accept 
payment from any one who is not the debtor , either 
originally or by consenting to become such, would be 
manifest injustice. The party from whom the money 
is to come is always quite as definitely and unalterably 
fixed in a legal note, as the party to whom the money 
is to be paid. If Turrettine overlooked this it simply 
proves that “ Homer may nod.” In fact it would be no 
more fatuous to maintain that debt might be paid by 
the debtor, giving to any body the amount of money 
called for in the note, than to maintain that debt 
might be paid by the creditor’s receiving money from 
any body who had money to spare. The party to 
whom and the party from whom the money must come 
are clearly defined. The limit, or restriction, is the 
same in the one case as in the other. To say that, in the 
case of debt the obligation is not upon the person, is a 
gross mistake. Turrettine was in this matter as greatly 
mistaken as he was in maintaining that mill-ponds 
would all be emptied were it true that the earth re- 
volved on its axis. To say that debt can be paid by 
any other than the debtor, or some one who consents 
to take his place and act, so far as that one matter is 
concerned, as his substitute, formally consenting to be- 
come the debtor, is to mistake the whole subject, and 
to misinterpret the facts and usages sanctioned by the 
unanimous verdict of mankind. 

In the last analysis sin and debt agree ; not merely 


136 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


in the sense that in the one case as in the other there 
is obligation to the law, but that the obligation in the 
one case as in the other arises from the witholding 
from the law what was due. That which the sinner 
and the debtor owe to the law is not merely something 
which ought to be paid, but which ought to have been 
paid , i. e. both the sinner and the debtor are under 
condemnation of law. Legal condemnation falls quite 
as promptly and as unerringly upon the debtor as upon 
the sinner. From this legal condemnation, whether of 
the debtor or of the sinner, there is but one way of 
deliverance, viz.: the satisfaction of the law. 

In the Lord’s prayer we read, Forgive us our Debts . 
Why this word if sin be not debt? That this is 
deeper debt than that the wealth of this world can 
pay — debt of another kind so that material wealth 
can pay no part of it — is most true ; but because it is 
debt so great shall we say it is not debt at all ? Debt 
which can be paid with money might rather be called 
the shadow, while this other, which only something 
infinitely more precious than money can pay, is the 
substance.* 


*A few weeks ago, and after the manuscript of this volume was pre- 
pared, it was my privilege to meet with the admirable work on re- 
presentative Responsibility, and to find in it aline of thought which 
co ncides in many respects with that in which I had been led: 

“Very strong exception has been taken to the prevailing view of 
atonement, that it is presented in the light of a commercial transac- 
tion" 

“ The fundamental element in both classes of relation is value. And 
value has both a moral and a material reference. Nor is it lightly to 
be assumed that ihe material is the original and precedent reierence, 
and only analogically applied to the moral. May it not be that as re- 
demption transcends all other interest in importance in this world 
of ours, and occupies such a place of worth and dignity in the gov- 


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137 


Turrettine admits that substitution, in the case of 
debt, is a normal provision of law. He denies that it 
is normal or admissible except by exercise of sovereign 
prerogative in the case of crime. The ground of this 
distinction is that obligation in the case of debt is not 
upon the person. By making this the ground of the 
distinction it is surely conceded that this ground re- 
moved the distinction would disappear. It has been 
clearly shown that obligation in the case of debt is 
upon the person precisely as in the case of crime, and 
that the sole difference consists in the fact that the ob- 
ligation in the one case is of such nature that man is 
competent to assume and fully discharge it, while in 
the other it is such as no mere man can possibly as- 
sume and fully discharge. 

The fact that substitution, in the case of crime, such 
as could fully satisfy God’s law was, in the nature of 
the case, impossible for mere man led to the unwar- 
rantable and wholly illogical conclusion that it was ab- 
normal, inadmissible and wholly unprovided for in the 
nature of law, and that it required the exercise of sov- 
ereign prerogative, “ a relaxation of the law,” “ a dis- 
pensing in some respects with the law whereas the 
vast gap between such substitution as mere man may 
furnish, and that furnished by Christ argues nothing 
against the normal provision of law or its ever -readi- 
ness for any and every truly adequate substitute. 



eminent of God, that the moral elements which belong to it pervade 
the whole economy, are designedly incorporated with it, therefore 
to be found, every where in all human relations; and that the Cle- 
men t of value enters into all human transactions, and is found in- 
woven in the constitution of the human mind?” 

Representative Responsibility, p..l77, Rev. Henry Wallace. 


138 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


The distinction between substitution provided for in 
the very nature of law, and substitution imposed upon 
law by mere prerogative, is not merely a distinction 
in name. It is real and momentous. It transforms 
one’s whole view of redemption. It opens the way 
for salvation by atonement according to the essential, 
absolute unchangeable requirements of law. It per- 
mits us to regard the Great Atonement as a Satisfac- 
tion so complete that there could be no need, no room 
for the relaxation of law that it might be accepted. 


SECTION SECOND. 

Imputation of Legal Obligation and of Legal 
Righteousness. 


In every case of payment of debt by a surety there 
is not only true and proper substitution, but there is 
imputation in the fullest sense of that term. To im- 
pute to any one is simply to charge to his account. 
This is all there is of imputation. A debt is ordin- 
arily imputed to the debtor, but this is not because 
there is, in the nature of the case, any necessity that 
it should be so imputed. In instances innumerable 
the imputation is, for various reasons, to another. 
“ Set that to my account ,” is a voice that, to the credit 
of mankind, has often been heard. From the instant 
in which a debt is incurred up to the instant of actual 
payment it may, at any time, be imputed to any one 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


139 


freely consenting thereto. When any one pays a debt 
for another the entire obligation is laid upon Am, the 
entire obligation is assumed and discharged by him. 
It must be remembered that the obligation is strictly 
a legal obligation. 

But there is in this transaction another imputation. 
As debt is imputed to the surety or substitute, the dis- 
charge or release is imputed to the debtor. The re- 
lease or receipt is righteousness perfect and complete 
before the law, so far as that one matter is concerned. 
The receipt or the cancelled note is the righteousness 
of the former debtor before the law. It is imputed to 
him. It is his “imputed righteousness.” We have 
then in this transaction, so familiar to all, a clear case 
of substitution, of imputation of legal obligation, and 
imputation of legal righteousness. In no creed in 
Christendom can “ substitution ” and “ double imputa- 
tion ” be found more clearly and distinctly set forth. 
That the principles on which these are admitted are 
principles which prevail in the entire range of law, 
there is no reason to doubt. In the moral as in the 
natural world, the greatest as well as the least results 
are attained on principles common to both. Nor is 
there any good reason for enshrouding with mystery 
these simple and plain principles because of their ap- 
plication to matters of solemn and transcendent inter- 
est. 

Substitution carrying with it “ double imputation,” 
whether in the case of an ordinary debt, or in the case 
of U 0ur Debts ” referred to in the Lord’s prayer, always 


140 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


and necessarily creates new relations and new obliga- 
tions. These deserve to be carefully studied. 

The rescued debtor owes to him who became his 
surety a deep and inextinguishable debt of gratitude. 
This all right minded persons at once recognize. But 
this new obligation is not a legal obligation. The 
most talented lawyer would not assume to put it into 
legal form. No Legislature has ever proposed to 
enact a law by which a surety might afterwards re- 
cover from the original party for whom he acted. 
Surely this has not been for want of deep conviction 
of real obligation, but because even average legislators 
were able to see that this obligation, though sacred 
and weighty, was not a legal obligation. They have 
therefore allowed it to stand in all its weight and sa- 
credness. It is a true and striking type of our obliga- 
tion to Christ who delivered us from the infinite debt 
we were under. Even the befriended debtor is “ not 
under law , but under grace” as are, and must be for- 
evermore, all the redeemed. 

Suretyship and Reinstatement. 

Perfect suretyship, whether we regard the supreme 
instance and exemplification of it in the work of 
Christ in our behalf, or the most common and familiar 
instances of it as exemplified among men, is always 
and manifestly suretyship which, in its own nature , se- 
cures and necessitates the reinstatement of every one in 
whose behalf it is undertaken. 

An obligation not yet matured is in common lan- 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


141 


guage called debt. Strictly speaking, it is not debt. 
Debt begins only after the maturity of the note or 
bond. Overlooking this important distinction leads to 
confusion. The satisfaction of debt by a surety is a 
real satisfaction before God and before law, only by 
our assuming the satisfaction to have been made by 
one every way adequate, — only by assuming that the 
satisfaction is made by one who is right at heart. It 
is only by assuming this that the payment of debt by 
a surety can be considered typical of Christ’s perfect 
atonement. Melchisedec “ without father and without 
mother, without beginning of days or end of life,” was 
in this respect qualified to be a type of Christ, as was 
no other ; so debt, ostensibly, and so far as man can 
see, paid, can be typical of Christ’s perfect payment of 
the debt we owe to God’s law. The type is all the 
more perfect, as a type, in both instances because of 
that which is left out of view. In fact, it is only because 
of what is left out of view, that in either case the 
type is true and significant. 

It is wholly because these considerations are not re- 
garded that men object to the evangelical scheme of 
salvation as mercenary. If we allow ourselves to ac- 
cept the “ plus plaisant ” notion that the mere giving 
of the required sum of money called for in the bond 
without regard to motive, discharges the obligation of 
the debtor, the whole obligation to the law, we may 
then, indeed, be shocked at the comparison of Christ’s 
work with payment of debt. It would then, indeed, 
be mercenary. But Christ’s Satisfaction of God’s law 


142 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


is like the surety’s satisfaction of human law, when 
said surety pays the debt to the full. As the full 
amount of money called for in the bond satisfies fully 
the law as it is, and as it must be administered by 
man ; so Christ’s perfect obedience satisfies the whole 
debt, the entire obligation the sinner was under to the 
law of God. 

But is law complied with, and in strict language 
fully satisfied, when debt is not paid as it becomes due? 
Although a creditor accept payment after maturity, it 
is not therefore to be supposed that law is satisfied. 
This important consideration has often been overlooked. 
Debts, whether consisting of bonds not yet matured, 
or notes past due, have been treated as if they ranked 
together ; whereas he cannot be said to have ever been 
in debt, who has always met promptly and fully every 
obligation, making full payment at maturity. He has 
never offended, has never fallen under condemnation 
of law. The law has never had anything against 
him. He has, so far as that matter is concerned, kept 
even with the law ; he neither has needed to make 
atonement, nor has he been in condition to need that 
atonement be made for him by any substitute or sur- 
ety. Not so with one who has allowed a note to ma- 
ture. That instant law condemns him. That instant 
he is under law, condemned by law and by conscience ; 
then, indeed, atonement is required, then a surety is 
needed, even then, strictly speaking, the surety must 
be ready instantly to meet the matured note, so as to 
prevent legal condemnation. 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


148 


A perfect ana every way adequate surety is not 
one who can be in the end relied on to pay, it may be 
days or weeks after maturity, the full amount called 
for in the bond, but one who meets the obligation at 
maturity. Short of this, the law in its strict require- 
ment is not met. The fact that Christ came in the 
fulness of time, and that His sufferings and death, His 
obedience unto death, was four thousand years after 
the Fall, is not to be regarded as a falling short of the 
requirements above stated for perfect suretyship. 
Christ is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the 
world. God calleth the things that be not, as though 
they were. With God one day is as a thousand years, 
and a thousand years as one day. The efficacy of 
Christ’s atonement depended not upon the period of 
time in which He offered himself up. Christ’s pay- 
ment of the penalty was a payment not in any sense 
delayed, but one that met instantly the demands of 
the law. Even among men a promise to pay is often 
regarded as payment ; if the one making the promise 
be reliable, then the promise itself has all the efficacy 
of payment — is payment, is so accepted and regarded. 
But the covenant engagement of Christ rendered His 
sufferings and death a sure ground for the release of 
all represented by Him, just as though these had al- 
ready taken place. 

To satisfy fully the law, the obedience and suffer- 
ings of Christ must fully ensure the reinstatement 
and restoration to obedience of His redeemed. If this 
most important element in the case were not left out 


144 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


of view, there would be no room for much of the 
seemingly plausible objection raised against the sub- 
stitution of Christ. Suretyship that does not necessi- 
tate the reinstatement of him in whose behalf it is 
undertaken, is fatally defective. Suretyship that seeks 
only to get hold of the bond and tear it to pieces, but 
cares not for the debtor, is not perfect suretyship; 
such suretyship does not satisfy law, does not retrieve 
all that was lost. 

If we accept this view that in the very nature of 
the case a true and perfect surety, a proper and real 
substitute, fully satisfies law’s real and full demand 
only when, by the full payment of the penalty, he re- 
instates and restores the sinner or debtor, the utter 
untenableness of a general or indefinite atonement is 
made quite evident. Reinstatement is necessitated by 
and virtually included in all real atonement. That 
this result is reached only after, and it may be as we 
j udge long after, is a consideration that detracts noth- 
ing from its true connection. Time is for us ; with 
God lapse of time divides not, separates not, things 
that in his purpose, and in their own nature, are joined 
together. Christ’s suretyship is perfect, satisfies law, 
satisfies God, satisfies conscience, elicits the rapturous 
admiration of all, because it ensures the perfect rein- 
statement of the sinner. So then the representation 
frequently made, that Christ having fully satisfied law, 
the sinner may, as a result of that, 1st, escape punish- 
ment, and 2nd, be restored and reinstated in the favor 
of God and in holiness and blessedness, is scarcely a 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


145 


half-truth ; for this very reinstatement is itself part of, 
and an essential part of true suretyship, true and full 
satisfaction of law. 

The reinstatement of the debtor, or sinner, is part of 
the satisfaction of law. In financial transactions the 
ostensible and legal reinstatement is a necessity. This 
reinstatement, it is true, does not in this case involve 
any inward change in the debtor ; but we must re- 
member that the whole transaction, in the case of 
suretyship for debt, is one that relates to the palpable, 
and visible, and legal, as man apprehends and accepts 
these. If then this transaction be a type, a true and 
natural type of the true and full satisfaction, it is be- 
cause the ostensible reinstatement in the one case re- 
presents the full and perfect reinstatement in the 
other. 

The chief objection to atonement by a substitute, or 
to the satisfaction of law by the innocent taking the 
place of the guilty, arises from a radically defective 
conception of that transaction. What law seeks, it con- 
fessedly seeks of the culprit. Turrettine is right when 
he says, “ The obligation in the case of crime is upon 
the person.” He is mistaken when he overlooks the 
fact that obligation unto law is in all cases and neces- 
sarily upon the person ; and therefore is not and can 
not be satisfied when the “ thing required ” is furnish- 
ed, leaving out of the account the question, Who is 
it that furnishes the thing required ? and this 
whether the thing required be money or penalty. 
If obligation then is upon the person, if the law looks 
10 


146 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


unto the culprit ever demanding its due, how can 
any substitute satisfy law? This question from its 
very nature deserves to be most carefully considered. 
I venture to affirm that no satisfactory answer can be 
given which leaves out oi view the great fact that 
proper and perfect substitution, and perfect atonement 
thereby, carries with it full reinstatement. Atone- 
ment satisfies law because it implies reinstatement. 
All who believe in the satisfaction theory of atone- 
ment virtually, if not formally, adhere to the doctrine 
of certain and necessary reinstatement of every one 
for whom atonement is made. All deniers of the sat- 
isfaction theory of atonement deny reinstatement, in 
fact hold to an atonement that has no necessary con- 
nection with reinstatement. 

SECTION THIRD. 

Satisfaction of Law. 

No objection to the evangelical doctrine of atone- 
ment is more frequently urged than that it is “ too 
much like a commercial transaction, in that it repre- 
sents God as making an exact bargain in regard to the 
terms on which he will forgive sin. To hold, as the 
orthodox creeds affirm, ‘that Christ did make a 
proper, real and full satisfaction,’ that this satisfaction 
was demanded and exacted, is to represent God as im- 
placable in that he yields nothing, but exacts to the 
last farthing all that is due ; so that ‘ however much 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


147 


gratitude we owe to Christ we owe on this behalf none 
to God. 7 77 

The literature alike of infidelity and of heresy 
abounds with repetitions and variations of this charge. 
Many and varied attempts have been made to modify 
the doctrine of atonement with the view of rendering 
it less obnoxious to this popular objection. But any 
modification that can possibly be made with this end 
in view is necessarily a failure. For if the exacting 
of the full penalty , whether of the sinner or of his 
substitute, be proof of implacability, unquestionably 
the exacting of any penalty is, so far, proof of the 
same characteristic. Those adopting this line of de- 
fense do at once make to the enemy the fatal conces- 
sion that to administer moral law with exactness 
would be derogatory to the character of the Lawgiver ; 
and thus they cut themselves off from the true line of 
defense and incur, for their superserviceable apologies 
and want of loyalty to the plain and obvious teachings 
of scripture and of the historic creeds of the Church, 
the deserved contempt of their opponents. 

Between the most orthodox creed of atonement by 
proper, real and full satisfaction of justice, and the 
frank and utter denial of atonement that offers 
any satisfaction to law, there is absolutely no logical 
standing ground. For the admission that moral, un- 
like natural law, is wax, the admission that the Divine 
Judge by whom “ actions are weighed ”, by whom 
persons are weighed , may manipulate the balances so 
that they shall not always declare to be “ wanting 77 


148 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


that which in reality is wanting, at once overturns the 
doctrine of atonement altogether, and opens the 
way for the unlimited exercise of “sovereign preroga- 
tive ” and “ dispensing power ” and unlimited “ relaxa- 
tion of law.” Accordingly all who deny the satisfac- 
tion theory of atonement are on the way to a denial 
of atonement altogether, for, if dispensing power may 
be exercised that atonement may be made, it may be 
exercised and atonement need not be made. This 
logical conclusion has been reached in the denial of 
the necessity for atonement except such as the govern- 
mental and moral influence theories require, i. e. 
atonement in which Satisfaction of Law has no place. 

It is greatly to be regretted that not a few of those 
esteemed orthodox standard theologians have yielded 
to the enemy the strongest strategic position of the en- 
tire field, viz. : the position that law in its very na- 
ture cannot yield ; that “ God never dispenses with his 
law”* that law in the moral is necessarily quite as ex- 
act as in the material universe; that it is for the inter- 
est of the created universe, as well as for the glory of 
God, that law should be exact and unyielding ; that it 
was because of this essential, unchangeable and benefi- 
cent attribute of law that atonement was necessary, if 
any violators of law were to be saved from deserved 
condemnation; that the mercy of God consisted in pro- 
viding and giving a Saviour who was able to satisfy 
fully the demands of law, not in accepting a substitute 


*K,ev. Jas. Kennedy. 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


149 


whom law in its own nature, and allowed to have its 
full demand, would not have accepted, nor in accept- 
ing of this substitute less than the law demanded ; that 
this Divine Saviour, provided, and having made atone- 
ment, mere, pure, exact justice required the deliver- 
ance of those united to him and represented by him ; 
that in accepting an adequate substitute law, in its 
whole demand, and in its fullest scope, was satisfied, 
nay, since this substitute was divine, was “ magnified 
and made honorable .” 

Yielding this strategic position we are at the mercy 
of the enemy. For if law can yield at all, if the uni- 
verse created and uncreated can afford to have law in 
its higher realms melt like wax, if God’s love can in any 
respect be shown to violators of law at the expense 
of justice, if Christ having done all and having suf- 
fered all he was raised up to do and to suffer, justice, 
exact justice, pure and mere justice, did not permit , 
require, demand, necessitate the deliverance of those 
whom he represented and whom he came to redeem, 
then indeed, “ Christ died in vain,” then is the “ offence 
of the Cross ” taken away, then “ the wages of sin ” is 
not “ death,” then are we all at sea as to the necessity 
for Christ’s intervention, then are we ready to disperse 
on voyages of discovery that we may find good reason 
for Christ’s coming into the world at all, and especially 
for his suffering in Gethsemane and on the Cross. In 
fact, we have a Christ whom we have little need of, 
and our main business is to cast about us that we may 
find what to do with him. If we say, He is our ex- 


150 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


ample, even while we contemplate his character, his 
life, his miracles, his sufferings, his death we start back 
dumb with amazement. He the innocent one suffer- 
ing when law does not absolutely demand it ; suffering 
that the universe may see how great an evil sin is. 
I protest that this is the “ ghastly spectacle,” horrid 
and horrible exceedingly ! A good God permits the 
innocent to suffer that the guilty may see the evil of 
sin. It is this theory of atonement, so called, that is 
open to the full force of the objection, “ the innocent 
cannot be allowed to suffer for the guilty;” for then 
the innocent as innocent, the innocent in the place of 
the innocent, and without iniquity laid upon him, is 
permitted to suffer, and this not because law requires 
it, but for the sake of “ Moral Influence” and “Gov- 
ernmental Display.” 

Maintaining the strategic position, as above indi- 
cated, how grand the vantage ground. Law in its 
very nature and in its utmost range necessarily exact, 
not to be mocked ; law in its highest realm, law that 
governs angels, quite as exact as that which governs 
atoms ; the administrator of law incapable of dispens- 
ing with his law for the reason that it is the expres- 
sion of his own will which changeth not ; incapable of 
relaxing any penalty because no prescribed penalty ex- 
ceeds, in the slightest degree, or is in any respect other 
than what it ought to be; incapable of dispensing with 
law because whatever of hope or confidence there is in 
the created universe, as well as the character of the 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


151 


Supreme Lawgiver, is linked with the sacredness, in- 
violability and exactness of law. 

That the strict administration of exact law would 
be well in a universe where there was no violation of 
law, will, I think, be conceded by all. Surely in such 
universe there would be no voice raised in behalf of 
the relaxing of law. 

Sin occurring, is it then for the interest of the uni- 
verse that law become pliant? Must law now be- 
come wax? Must penalty be uncertain ? Must it be 
proclaimed not to be certainly inflicted, but merely 
to frighten ?* 

Transgression of law having occurred, is it now to 
be desired that the Supreme Lawgiver should dispense 
with law and with penalty altogether ? Is it imagin- 
able that any being not wholly bereft of wisdom could 
expect, or even desire this ? 

What then were best in this case, what for God’s 
glory and for the good of the universe ? Instructed 
by history, experience and observation, as well as by 
divine revelation, we know what supreme wisdom 
judged best. 

1. In the case of fallen angels law took its own 
course and was in no respect interfered with. 

2. In the case of some of our fallen race law takes 


*1 have in my library a work on atonement by a Professor of The- 
ology, in which it is maintained that God is not under absolute obli- 
gation to inflict the penalties of his law. He is under obligation to 
lulfil his promises. Can the reader imagine the basis on which this 
astounding distinction rests? It is as follows : The person against 
whom threatened penalty is denounced “ has no right to demand the 
infliction of the penalty.” The person to whom a promise has been 
made “ has a right to demand its fulfillment!” 


152 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


its course, the penalty being in no respect mitigated. 
(The opposers of the satisfaction theory of atonement, 
the believers in a universal atonement, hold to the doc- 
trine of the execution of the penalty upon the finally 
lost.) 

3. The question then is narrowed down to this 
alone : In the case of the redeemed of mankind was 
law “ relaxed ” or “ dispensed with ?” Or did it in 
this case receive its most glorious vindication ? Did 
it shine forth in its awfulness, its exactness and its in- 
violability more brightly than in any or in all other 
instances? Is not redemption the supreme demon- 
stration to the moral universe of the exactness and in- 
violability of law ? 

This is the crucial question for the theories of atone- 
ment. But one theory will stand the test. It is need- 
less to deal in detail with the many diluted doctrines 
of atonement. They all group themselves together 
upon the same shifting sand. They all assume that 
redemption means that law became wax. They all 
assume that redemption does not set forth to the uni- 
verse the absoluteness of the reign of law. They 
stand or fall together. 

Atonement, as maintained by the orthodox them- 
selves, has been too often complicated by rash conces- 
sions and untenable statements. Standard authors 
speak of a dispensing power, represent that law ob- 
tained not what it demanded when Christ our substi- 
tute took our place. 

“ Here the twofold solution, concerning which jurists 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


153 


treat, should be accurately distinguished. The one, 
which ipso facto liberates the debtor or criminal be- 
cause that very thing which was owed is paid, whether 
it was done by the debtor or by another in his name. 
The other, which ipso facto does not liberate, since not 
at all the very thing which was owed, but an equiva- 
lent, is paid, which, although it does not thoroughly 
and ipso facto discharge the obligation , yet having been 
accepted — since it might be refused — is regarded as a 
satisfaction.”* 

“ As a matter of mere law, no satisfaction can find 
acceptance other than the literal suffering of the pen- 
alty by the criminal in person.”! 

“ The substitution of Christ is a case which is abso- 
lutely peculiar. Such a case could never be justified 
as a matter of ordinary or frequent occurrence. It 
could only be when something extraordinary called 
for its introduction, when such a combination of re- 
quirements met as could but seldom come together, 
that it would be warrantable to admit of the innocent 
being substituted in room of the guilty. Its frequent 
occurrence could not fail to have a most injurious in- 
fluence in weakening the sense of moral obligation. 
That the bad should be pardoned at the expense of 
the good, the virtuous sacrificed that the wicked 
might be spared, and those who are a blessing to so- 
ciety cut off that such as are a curse might be perpetu- 
ated, are what no wise government could tolerate. 


♦Turrettme Locus XIV. Quaestio 10. tThe Atonement, p. 192, Hodge. 


154 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


The punishment of crime would, in this case, be so 
dissevered from the perpetration of crime, as to impair 
the motives to obedience and take away all fear of of- 
fending against the law. The purposes of good gov- 
ernment thus require that the principle of substitution 
shall be but rarely introduced.”* 

Rather the boundless resources of law are revealed to 
us in that it contains in itself provision for the exercise 
of utmost virtue on the part of every subject of law 
from the least to the greatest ; even as the boundless 
love of God, in the free height of that heaven which 
is above law itself, that dazzling height wherein God 
Himself alone acts — that of absolute sovereignty — has 
free and full scope in providing, “ raising up,” “ deliv- 
ering up,” the Christ. The utmost virtue of all sub- 
jects of law, including the Christ himself in the capac- 
ity of a servant and under law, was required and en- 
joined by the law of God, while the utmost exercise of 
divine goodness, in the gift of Christ and salvation by 
him, was required solely by the Infinitude of the Di- 
vine Perfections. “ Herein is love , not that we loved 
God , but that he loved us and gave his Son ” — “ God so 
loved that he gave ” — This is the one channel opened 
for the out-flowing of infinite mercy. It is a channel 
wide enough for the full volume of divine mercy. If 
divine mercy could flow in other channels this one 
need not have been opened. Mercy at the expense of 
law, mercy by suspension of law, by relaxation of law, 


♦The Atonement, p. 46, Symington. 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


155 


or by any interference whatever with the onward 
movement of law, is a pure figment of the brain, not 
merely unsupported by any hint either in scripture or 
in nature, but one against which nature as well as 
scripture vehemently, uniformly and even awfully pro- 
tests. 

If to many it seem “ revolting ” to represent God 
as dealing with sin, whether for its punishment, for its 
pardon, or for its removal, according to the strict re- 
quirements of law, i. e., with infinite exactness, this 
fact is not even a presumption of the incorrectness of 
such representation. The exactness of law is that 
which the guilty ever deprecate and dread. 

Aside from all that nature and scripture teach re- 
garding the exactness of God’s dealings, it is, a priori, 
credible that God in the infinitude of his wisdom 
and power should be able to find a way by which he 
could save sinners, without departing from that exact- 
ness and accuracy which characterizes all his works in 
nature and providence. Why should men object 
to the idea of “ a plan of salvation,” or to the doctrine 
of salvation in exact accordance with a plan, when 
one of the first lessons of life is that whatsoever is 
done wisely and well must in the nature of the case 
be done according to a plan, when, by all confes- 
sion, in nature and in providence there are sure proofs 
of a divine plan, never departed from, never changed 
or modified, for the obvious reason that the author of 
this plan was one who “ sees the End from the Begin- 
ning,” one who “ changeth not” 


156 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


Divine love moved Christ to accomplish the work 
of our redemption by becoming obedient, by suffering 
in obedience to law all that law demanded. How can 
this transaction be regarded “ mercenary ” ? Those 
who so regard it must imagine that bargain, agree- 
ment, covenant engagement and exact fulfilment of 
these are derogatory to character. The very reverse 
of this is true. Whatsoever God does, whether in 
nature or in grace, he does with infinite exactness. 


SECTION FOURTH. 

Equivalent Penalty. 

Law as apprehended and administered by men in 
all lands and in all ages has not only admitted substi- 
tution in every case in which a really adequate substi- 
tute was offered, but it has admitted equivalent pen- 
alty. Much of the confident asseveration of skeptical 
and heretical writers regarding the inadmissibility of 
equivalent penalty is alike unscriptural, unreasonable 
and contrary to the judgment of mankind and to the 
uniform practice in the administration of justice in 
courts of law in all lands. This is too obvious to need 
much comment. The admissibility, the propriety, of 
equivalent penalty in the satisfaction of obligations to 
law is without hesitation assumed. It would be well 
if that class of theologians, whom Dr. Hodge was pro- 
voked to designate as “ dapper,” while hastening to 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


15T 


put themselves in sympathy with the best modern 
thought, would pay some attention to the common- 
places of jurisprudence sanctioned by the unanimous 
verdict of mankind. If they are correct in their con- 
fident arraignment of the principle of equivalent pen- 
alty as set forth in the Bible and in the creeds of the 
Church, it is high time they set themselves to the task 
of eliminating from the entire legislation of Christen- 
dom, and of heathendom as well, the astounding and 
universal recognition of that utterly unphilosophical, 
inadmissible and erroneous principle. Before this task 
is accomplished we shall be able to judge of the effi- 
ciency of the best modern thought in turning back the 
full tide of human thought which, so far as this mat- 
ter is concerned, has flowed calmly on in one direction 
in all the centuries past. 

“ The commercial language, above quoted,” (that re- 
presenting Christ’s work “ as a redemption , as a deliv- 
erance from the curse of the law by the payment of an 
Equivalent as a ransom price” representing Christ 
as “our ransom,” our “substituted ransom” and 
Christ’s followers as “the- redeemed,”) “is not the 
invention of orthodox theologians. It is the sponta- 
neous and very frequent language of the Holy Ghost, 
deliberately chosen to set before our minds the true 
nature and method of Christian salvation. It is more- 
over plain that this language, taken in its obvious 
sense, is most appropriate to the subject, if our view 
of the nature of the Atonement be true, while it is 


158 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


certainly unnatural and misleading if either of the al- 
ternative views should be true.”* 

Scripture without hesitation and without explana- 
tion represents salvation by Christ as a transaction an- 
alogous to the payment of debt, the ransom of a cap • 
tive, the redemption of a forfeited inheritance. From 
the beginning to the end of the Bible there is no note 
of warning, no intimation that these comparisons may 
be misleading. It is always assumed that they do 
plainly set forth Christ’s work of redemption. 

The outcry against the theology that compares 
Christ’s work to the payment of debt, to the redemp- 
tion of a forfeited inheritance, the outcry against the 
use of any one of the abounding scriptural allusions to 
financial transactions, is an outcry that betrays at once 
disregard for scripture and a misconception of Christ’s 
perfect work of redemption. 

The principles of justice, the standard of right, the 
requirements of law, as these have been illustrated and 
exemplified in financial transactions among mankind 
in all lands, are identical with the principles of justice, 
the standard of right and the requirements of law in 
the highest sphere. 

God having plainly taught us that Christ paid a 
ransom price, redeemed us by satisfying our obliga- 
tion to law, there must be a beautiful analogy between 
the discharge of debt by a surety and Christ’s work, 
an analogy that holds with wonderful accuracy and 


*The Atonement, p. 193, Hodge. 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


159 


minuteness in a vast number of particulars. Regarded 
in the light of this beautiful and predetermined anal- 
ogy, so far from being degraded, Christ’s work is held 
aloft in all its gloriousness. In many notable texts of 
scripture this is clearly, plainly, set forth. “Ye were 
not redeemed with corruptible things as of silver and 
gold, . . . but with the precious blood.” This text 
links Christ’s work with redemption by price, and 
Christ’s work in its utmost gloriousness is directly as- 
serted to be redemption by a ransom price, the only 
point of distinction being the nature and value of the 
price paid. The interpreter who considers this text as 
separating Christ’s work from, and as of a different 
kind from, the redemption that is familiar among men 
even that by silver and gold, utterly misapprehends the 
text. The difference that the text brings out is a dif- 
ference, not as to the nature of the transaction, but 
solely as to the value and excellence of the ransom 
price. It is a ransom price, it is a payment , a redemp- 
tion. It is a satisfaction of a legal obligation ; but the 
price, the ransom price, is the wonderful thing, not the 
other characteristics of the transaction. No, the other 
characteristics are like, and it is because they are like 
that the unlikeness, the dissimilarity, the vast superi- 
ority, of the price is set forth in a clear light. 

Law, in its own nature, and without the exercise of 
sovereign prerogative, and without any dispensing 
power on the part of the Lawgiver, admits substitu- 
tion, not only in the case of debt, or the deliverance 
of persons condemned by law merely as debtors, but 


160 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


it provides for substitution in the case of persons con- 
demned for crime, when the prescribed legal pen- 
alty for the crime is such that man may fully meet 
and satisfy the law, consistently with his already ex- 
isting obligations and duties ; and that this provision 
of law may not be unused Equivalent Penalty is ad- 
mitted in a vast variety of ways. The admission of 
substitution and of Equivalent Penalty, so far from 
being peculiar to the scheme of salvation by Christ, 
so far from being introduced arbitrarily and by mere 
prerogative, is familiar to all men in the ordinary admin- 
istration of law. In every country in Christendom by 
far the largest number of crimes tried in criminal 
courts are crimes punishable with “ fine or imprison- 
ment.” In legal language persons are condemned in 
such and such a sum. Here then is penalty required 
of the guilty. Why, if law in its nature is opposed 
to substitution, has law, as understood and administered 
by man, never once closed the door against benevolent 
and self-sacrificing friends who might be disposed to 
deliver a criminal from this form of penalty ? Surely 
no sovereign prerogative is required when the penalty 
of a certain offence is a fine ; for law offers no objec- 
tion to a substitute in this case. But both substitution 
and equivalent penalty are clearly recognized in every 
case, whether in fact a substitute offering equivalent 
penalty appear, or whether for want of such the 
friendless culprit be hurried away to prison, since the 
law, to the last moment, keeps open before him this 
door of hope. 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


161 


In a certain country there were two young men who 
were hound to each other by the ties of kindred, but 
they were very diverse in character and conduct. 
The one was prodigal in the extreme. He not only 
spent all his living, but he sank into vice, and pro- 
ceeded from one step to another until he was at last ar- 
rested and brought to trial for a crime, for which the 
penalty prescribed by law was “a thousand talents 
or perpetual banishment.” 

Soon it became known abroad that this terrible sen- 
tence was to be pronounced, and to be followed with 
certain execution of it without hope of any change of 
the sentence, or of a modification, or even a reprieve. 
These tidings reached the ears of his kinsman who 
was dwelling in a distant part of the same country. 
On hearing these tidings he hastened to the miserable 
town and into the presence of the court. He ar- 
rived after the sentence had been pronounced. 
The court and all the spectators, knowing that 
the poor culprit had no means of paying the im- 
mense fine, and knowing that not one, not all, of his 
miserable companions in revelry and crime were able 
to furnish even a small fraction of that vast sum, as 
well as the culprit himself, looked for nothing else 
than immediate and perpetual banishment. The law, 
indeed, and the sentence clearly showed that he had 
the alternative: a thousand talents would satisfy the 
law, for it was expressly placed side by side with ban- 
ishment, as a penalty judged to be the equivalent of 
banishment. 


11 


162 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


But this satisfaction of law by an equivalent penalty 
he was unable to make. It therefore was no relief to 
him ; for neither he, nor any man in the town could 
meet that penalty. The trial was a fair one, the con- 
demnation was acknowledged to be a just one. The 
great government represented by the judge who 
held his court in this miserable place, was a govern- 
ment distinguished, both for its absolute justice and 
for the benignity of its laws. The culprit and his 
companions, when the sentence was proclaimed, and 
all the people of the town, failing to see any signifi- 
cance in the provision of the law which allowed equiv- 
alent penalty, since no one in that wretched town 
would be found willing, or if willing would be found 
able, to meet the penalty, willing and able to be a sub- 
stitute for the condemned culprit; failing to see that this 
provision of the law, clearly announced in the sen- 
tence, did provide for the successful admission of sub- 
stitution, were disposed to regard the law and the de- 
cision of the court, as though no such provision had 
been made. They thought of nothing but the banish- 
ment of the condemned, knowing that this form of pen- 
alty no one would be found willing to assume. 

In the great assembly that looked on, the kinsman 
from a distant city appeared, and addressing the judge, 
said, “ I am ready to take the place of my con- 
demned kinsman. Lay on me the penalty, be it what 
it may.” The judge addressing the benevolent kins- 
man assured him that the sentence was one which no 
substitute could meet. Of that vast assembly all eyes 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


163 


were turned towards the distinguished stranger who 
had so unexpectedly appeared among them, every 
countenance clearly indicating the hopelessness of the 
proposed substitution. 

The judge continuing his address to the benevolent 
stranger assured him that there was, indeed, for the 
unfortunate culprit this provision of the law that a 
thousand talents was by the express sentence the 
equivalent of banishment, but added, that no one in the 
town, or, indeed in the whole country, could be found 
able, or if able, willing, to part with so great a sum for 
the benefit of one so justly condemned for his crimes; 
and as for suffering banishment in his stead, the law 
would not permit any one to do that were he ever so 
willing to sacrifice himself. 

To this the kinsman of the condemed replied by fur- 
nishing, to the astonishment of all, the full amount of 
the prescribed penalty, the thousand talents. The culprit 
was not banished. The kinsman proved to be the heir 
to an immense estate, and his poor friend who so nar- 
rowly escaped perpetual banishment became a joint 
heir with him to that vast inheritance. 

1. The significance of the admission of substitution 
and of Equivalent penalty in the administration of law 
can hardly be over-rated. That there are crimes for 
which no ransom man can furnish will avail — crimes 
so great that there is no alternative but one only pen- 
alty prescribed by human law, is not to be understood 
as determining that there is really no equivalent pen- 


164 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


alty that would fully satisfy law, but rather as the 
confession of man’s inability to discern clearly what, 
in such cases, would be a just equivalent. When all 
men claim and exercise the right to enact and admin- 
ister laws in which equivalent penalty is provided for, 
how can we assume that the Supreme Lawgiver is not 
able to administer law in its utmost range in accord- 
ance with this principle ? 

2. The admission of equivalent penalty opens wide 
and wondrous opportunity for substitution. The rela- 
tions of substitution and of equivalent penalty as 
these are provided for in law, and as they are exempli- 
fied in law administered by man in , dealing with the 
innumerable crimes of which we read day after day, 
or in law in its utmost height, deserve to be profoundly 
and devoutly studied. 

3. Marvellously beneficent results are secured by 
the admission of this principle, results which, so far 
as we can see, could in no other way be attained, re- 
sults affecting the fallen and the unfallen. Had no 
provision been made for equivalent penalty the benev- 
olent kinsman would have been debarred from acting 
as a substitute. The culprit would have been without 
hope, and must have been “ forever banished .” Law 
could not allow a substitute to assume a penalty that 
involved his own destruction, or perpetual banishment. 

How wonderful is it that in common occurrences in 
the administration of justice every principle of law re- 
lating to the admissibility of substitution is clearly 
brought out. The equivalent penalty is one that is 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


165 


once offered ; at once completely rendered. And by 
usage of courts it is always the equivalent of a pro- 
longed penalty in prison or banishment. Equivalent 
penalty for violation of law of a kind that it is placed 
over against a prolonged endurance is not peculiar to 
orthodox theology, but is familiar to all. Christ’s 
furnishing by “ one offering ” an equivalent to what 
should have involved prolonged imprisonment or ban- 
ishment is exactly, beautifully, frequently exemplified 
among men. 

4. Suffering by the innocent in meeting the penalty 
of law prescribed for crime is admitted among men. 
The man who parts with what is his suffers in his 
property as certainly as man suffers in any other way. 
It is not merely a mistake to say that law does not 
permit a substitute to deliver a culprit by meeting the 
penalty, but it is a total mistake to imagine that law, 
as it has always been understood and administered 
among men, does not permit the proposed substitute 
to suffer in meeting penalty. All penalty involves 
suffering. The payment of a fine or ransom, by one 
every way able, involves suffering in so much prop- 
erty, but this is a kind of suffering that does not in- 
volve the ruin of the sufferer, and only such suffering 
can be allowed. 

The language of mankind, if it can establish any- 
thing, establishes the principle that men are properly 
said to suffer when their property is swept away. 
When floods come or fire sweeps through a town or 
city, who hesitates to speak of “ the sufferers ” t Who 


166 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


hastens to explain ? “ These are not sufferers, they have 
but lost their property.” So far from this there is a 
peculiarly keen sense of this kind of suffering. The 
case supposed, if we imagine the kinsman to have 
given all his possessions, shows that law permits sub- 
stitutes to suffer in their property. That it forbids 
them to suffer in prolonged imprisonment, or banish- 
ment, is owing to other considerations that must not 
be overlooked, and not at all because suffering in its 
very nature is inadmissible. Suffering not only is ad- 
missible, it is the main element in all penalty. 

5. Substitution in its own nature involving humilia- 
tion, or a descent from a high and honorable place to 
a humble and lowly place, is also clearly admitted 
in law*as commonly administered by men. 

The kinsman by giving all might readily be imag- 
ined to come down to the position of a servant. His 
one great act of charity might involve his passing 
from affluence to extreme poverty, so that “ he had not 
where to lay his head.” 

While self-sacrifice of this kind may be rarely, if 
ever, witnessed, it is undeniable that law offers no bar- 
rier thereto. Even the grossest criminal, ere he is hur- 
ried away to prison or banishment, may at any time 
be rescued if in his case the law has admitted equiva- 
lent penalty of such kind that man is able to assume 
it ; and this though the ransom, instead of being a com- 
paratively small sum taken out of his abundance, were 
all that he had , so that at once he should be reduced to 
extreme poverty and to the condition of a servant. 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


167 


Law even as administered by man offers no barrier to 
benevolence. Law, the law of God, the law of God 
even in its denunciation of the most dreadful penalty, 
is not intended to be a barrier to the benevolent im- 
pulses or the benevolent action of any loyal subject 
of law. Law as understood and administered by men 
stands ever ready to admit any substitute able to meet 
the penalty. This fact deserves to be very seriously 
considered before pronouncing against the admissibility 
of substitution, and of equivalent penalty by a substi- 
tute, except by “sovereign prerogative,” “dispensing 
power,” and “relaxation of law.” 

Law as administered by men admits substitution for 
crime and admits equivalent penalty, allows “ the in- 
nocent to suffer for the guilty ” (for all penalty in- 
volves suffering), allows the innocent to suffer the loss 
of all that he has. If we ask why this particular kind 
of suffering is allowed, the answer is at hand : This is 
the kind of suffering which man is competent to as- 
sume, for 1st. It is completed at once, it is “ by one of- 
fering .” 2d. It is not ruinous. The sufferer survives. 

3d. He is not, in the long run, a loser, but is rewarded. 
Any amount or extent of suffering by a substitute in 
meeting the legal obligations of another, in which 
these conditions meet, law in its utmost range freely 
admits. There is no reason to believe that there is a 
violator of law in the universe whose obligations unto 
law may not be assumed by another. If there are 
violators for whom there is no hope, it is because 
there is no hope that any adeguate substitute offering 


168 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


equivalent penalty shall ever be raised up ; and not be- 
cause law, the law of God, which is expressive of all 
his perfections, closes the door of hope against the 
fallen or forbids utmost benevolence on the part of 
any one of all the loyal subjects of law. 

6. The admissibility of substitution and of equiva- 
lent penalty by a substitute may be more clearly seen 
by reflecting upon the consequences of the refusal, 
limitation, or restriction of these. 

If, in the extreme case supposed, the kinsman may 
not be allowed to satisfy an obligation which he is 
willing and able to satisfy by parting with “all that 
he hath,” on what principle can any legal obligation 
be met by a substitute ? Wheresoever the limit be 
fixed, in each case, it is assuredly not fixed by the law. 
Law cannot be understood to say, “ Pay the ransom for 
thy kinsman, thy friend, or thine enemy, if it be a 
very light one. Pay it not if his case be such that 
utter ruin would come on him if thou refuse. Pay the 
ransom if thou canst do so, and live in splendor as be- 
fore.” No, law fixes no limit, but ever permits all to 
be imitators of Him who, “ though he was rich , yet for 
our sakes became poor” 

But if law in its own nature does not stand ever 
ready, ever waiting for, any adequate substitute to de- 
liver any one under sentence of condemnation, then 
there is a barrier thrown in the way of utmost benev- 
olence. If law as administered by man always ac- 
cepts any competent substitute in every case in which 
the penalty is one that a substitute may satisfy, even 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


169 


though his meeting the penalty involve his giving all 
that he hath, caa we think that God’s law does not 
hold the same attitude and keep the door ever open 
for any adequate substitute ? I am confident that the 
reason this characteristic of law has not been clearly 
seen and generally recognized, is that there has not 
been clear discrimination as regards the grounds on 
which substitution by mere man in criminal cases is 
limited and restricted practically and almost exclu- 
sively to a few cases of inferior kind. It has not been 
duly considered that the severer forms of penalty are 
not assumed and met by men, not because law forbids 
it , but simply because men are not competent. 

7. Instead of law being relaxed or suspended, that 
substitution and equivalent penalty might be intro- 
duced law itself simply requires these. The law that 
requires the giving of a cup of cold water is the same 
law that requires the giving of “ all that a man hath, 
yea, and his own life also.” Substitution, or the as- 
sumption of the obligations of another, is simply the 
highest exemplification of virtue, so that before each 
the way is open, even to Christ himself. 

But we are told that “ the innocent may not suffer 
for the guilty.” Those making this assertion imagine 
they have reached bed-rock both as regards philoso- 
phy and morals. The innocent may not be allowed 
to suffer for the guilty! What kind of world that 
would be wherein this restriction were laid upon all the 
virtuous, even the average imagination should be able 
to picture to itself. Let us rejoice that, bad as our 


170 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


world is, it is not a world wherein the innocent are not 
allowed to suffer for the guilty. 

These philosophers should reflect that the innocent 
alone can suffer, to any purpose, for the guilty. Inno- 
cence is the essential qualification for this the highest 
form of virtue. This holds good in every case 
Even the substitute or surety for debt is the inno- 
cent. 

But, severely analyzed, what views, what principles, 
underlie this clamorous outcry against the innocent 
suffering for the guilty ? Is it not assumed that suf- 
fering for the guilty is wholly an evil and not some- 
thing to be, with heroic and hopeful heart, undertaken ? 
The objector sees not at all what every worthy substi- 
tute consenting to suffer for another must, in some de- 
gree, discern, and what the Great Sufferer ever had in 
view, 11 joy set before him” The objection proceeds on 
the principle that bliss is gratification. That the road 
to utmost honor and bliss is one that leads through 
sorrow and suffering, the objector by no means admits. 
His road to bliss is gratification, let who will suffer. 
Other road to bliss our Lord taught us, aye, trod be- 
fore us. 

The innocent in this world ever suffer for the guilty. 
He that has not learned this has learned nothing. He 
that learns not this is incapable of learning anything. 
He who thinks the innocent may not suffer for the 
guilty has not learned the alphabet of virtue. He 
who thinks God’s law must be set aside before this 
can be allowed, dishonors the law. All the suffering 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


171 


of the innocent for the guilty that the world has yet 
seen, all that aggregate of suffering by those “of 
whom the world was not worthy,” groups itself under 
the shadow of the cross, and all of it, together with 
the suffering on the cross itself, the law of God en- 
joined and required. There is no super-legal right- 
eousness. There is no super -legal charity . 

All the holy in the ages past who suffered for others 
simply obeyed, but did in no respect transcend the re- 
quirement of law. The work of fulfilling the law in 
behalf of the redeemed was itself what the law re- 
quired of him who voluntarily came under law and 
who was able to save. 

SECTION FIFTH. 

“ Sovereign Prerogative ” “ Dispensing Power” 

“ Relaxation of Law” 

That any satisfaction rendered to law by a substi- 
tute must necessarily fall short of meeting the rigid 
and exact claims of law, 1st, for the reason that it is 
rendered by a substitute ; 2d, because it is an equiva- 
lent and not the very thing that was owed ; that the 
law of God in its claims was relaxed in that any sub- 
stitute was admitted, is the view taught by the ortho- 
dox generally. There is no way of avoiding this con- 
clusion so long as we hold that substitution is not pro- 
vided for in the very nature of law, so that satisfac- 
tion offered by a fully adequate substitute is quite as 


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ATONEMENT AND LAW 


acceptable to law as satisfaction offered by the violator 
of law in bis own person. If substitution be not a 
normal provision of law then there must be sovereign 
prerogative, dispensing power and relaxation of law in 
order to the admission of even the most perfect satis- 
faction possible, by even the most perfect surety, 
Christ Himself. “ As a mere matter of law no satis- 
faction can find acceptance other than the literal suffer- 
ing of the penalty by the criminal in person.” This I 
know is the view accepted by even the most orthodox 
defenders of the “ satisfaction of Christ,” As all will 
readily perceive, on this view certain logical conclu- 
sions of utmost significance are rendered inevitable. 

1. Law may, by mere prerogative, be relaxed. 

2. No satisfaction offered by a substitute can possi- 
bly meet the full requirements of law. 

3. Consequently, the release of those in whose be- 
half satisfaction has been made is not a matter of jus- 
tice, but of grace. 

In all instances in which substitution is admitted in 
law as understood and administered by men what is 
rendered by an adequate substitute quite as fully satis- 
fies law as though it had been rendered by those on 
whom the obligation originally rested. Neither in 
the admission of the substitute, the acceptance of what 
he renders, or the release of him in whose behalf the 
substitute acted, is there any relaxation of law. The 
substitute, in every case, not only may be, but must 
be accepted. The same is true of the satisfaction 
which he offers. The release of him for whom satis- 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


173 


faction has been made is then a matter of mere justice. 
The grace consists always and solely in the voluntary 
engaging of the substitute. To fulfill the engagement 
is to fulfill the law. To agree to assume the legal ob- 
ligations of another is grace. To fulfill these obliga- 
tions is justice. That the whole transaction may be 
one of pure and mere grace it is necessary that the ful- 
fillment of the legal obligations be pure, mere and ex- 
act justice. 

In accepting the services of an adequate substitute, 
in any one of the innumerable instances in which sub- 
stitution is by law admitted among men, law is not at 
all relaxed. This fact deserves to be profoundly stud- 
ied. It proves that there may be substitution without 
the slightest evasion of the exact and full demands of 
law. It proves that there is nothing in the nature of law 
which forbids its being fully satisfied by a substitute. 
This being the case, it is not to be assumed that the 
one great substitute, of whom all others were but 
types, was one who could be admitted only when law 
had been relaxed. 

That law may be fully satisfied it is necessary that 
the substitute be one so fully qualified that law in its 
most rigid enforcement can offer no objection. There 
would be a relaxation of law in accepting any substi- 
tute not able to render to law all that was demanded. 
So that these two propositions stand or fall together. 
1st. There was no relaxation of the law in admitting 
Christ. 2d. The full penalty of the law was borne by 
Christ. Turrettine, the oracle of the acccepted doc- 


174 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


trine of the relaxation of law in admitting Christ, 
quite consistently, plainly and frequently insists that 
theie was leniency shown to Christ, while many who 
follow him in accepting the former illogically part 
from him as regards the matter of leniency, contend- 
ing that Christ endured in strict rigour of justice the 
penalty of the law. The logical conclusion of Turret- 
tine is irresistible. There could be no relaxation of 
law in admitting a substitute who should render to law 
all it demanded. The question of relaxation of law in 
admitting any given substitute is, therefore, a question 
that hinges upon the question of the completeness of 
the satisfaction which the proposed substitute fur- 
nishes. 

There is perhaps no question treated of by theolo- 
gians in regard to which opinion is so completely un- 
settled. Those denying the satisfaction theory of 
atonement confidently affirm that Christ did not as- 
sume the obligations we were under, did not “ make a 
proper, real and full satisfaction to God’s justice.” 
They hold that Christ’s obedience and sufferings ren- 
dered it proper, and consistent with the best interests 
of the moral universe, for God to forgive sin. The or- 
thodox holding to the doctrine of “ relaxation of law ” 
or “dispensing power ” in admitting Christ, and conse- 
quently to the doctrine of leniency in dealing with 
Christ, whatever they may imagine, or affirm in words, 
do in reality occupy the same ground with all the op- 
ponents of satisfaction; for then Christ’s work, be 
it what it may, was a work which simply rendered 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


175 


it consistent with good government to grant pardon. 

In modern times it is thought the doctrine that 
Christ rendered to the law “ all that was owed,” may 
be summarily, if not contemptuously dismissed. It is 
thought incredible that Christ could comply with the 
full demands of the law, incredible that God should 
require this. As for this being required it is incredi- 
ble that any sufferings should have been required un- 
less there was the most imperative necessity for them. 
But there could be no imperative necessity if sin could 
have been pardoned by mere exercise of prerogative. 

When it is maintained that Christ by his obedience 
culminating in his sacrificial sufferings and death fully 
satisfied the law, men say at once, It is incredible. 
They denounce such assertions as rash and unwarrant- 
able. They do not reflect that the denial of this doc- 
trine implies the acceptance of a view of Christ’s 
work, which is rash and unwarrantable indeed ; viz. : 
that they are capable of weighing and estimating the 
obedience and sufferings of Christ, nay, that they have 
done this already, and have found them falling short 
of what the law required. Meantime they seem quite 
oblivious of the fact that the element of the infinite en- 
ters into that which they have been weighing and 
estimating. How Christ could fully satisfy the claims of 
law, endure “in strict rigor of justice the unrelaxed 
penalty of the law ” in his person, must be to all cre- 
ated intelligences forevermore a mystery incompre- 
hensible as that of creation itself. But, so far from 
being incredible that a Divine Saviour should be able 


176 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


to do this, it is incredible that he should fail to do 
this. When we deal with the infinite it is the myste- 
rious and the incomprehensible that is credible. The 
gravest objection to all the theories of atonement 
which deny that it was a satisfaction of law, is that 
they represent Christ’s work as if it were not the work 
of an infinite Saviour, as if it could be comprehended 
in its length and breadth and fully estimated by man. 
The infinitude, the divinity of Christ, and this alone, 
furnishes ground for believing that he rendered per- 
fect satisfaction to the law. 

Sovereign prerogative, dispensing power, relaxation 
of law, would never have been imagined had it not 
been assumed that law in its very nature, law allowed 
its own course, could accept no substitute, could be 
satisfied with nothing but the actual enduring of the 
penalty by the sinner in his own person. It is 
thought that law was turned aside from its aim, ar- 
rested in its course. It is thought that law was con- 
strained to accept an “ equivalent ” and not the “ very 
thing owed,” and this from a substitute, not from the 
sinner, of whom alone the law is regarded as demand- 
ing its due ; whereas law moving on in its own course, 
law without swerving in the least from its prescribed 
path, found Christ in our nature, and “ under law,” 
and by his own voluntary and gracious covenant en- 
gagement our surety and substitute, answerable for 
all that was against us. No one is a surety, or substi- 
tute for another, but one who comes into the very 
place where the full weight of the obligation falls. 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


177 


1. Holding to relaxation of law in admitting Christ, 
we are constrained to assume that law in its own na- 
ture makes no provision by which the virtuous, the 
able and willing may, according to their ability, as- 
sume and meet the legal obligations of the erring and 
helpless of their own race ; an assumption which is 
not merely unsupported, but is contradicted, by what 
we learn of law whether in scripture, nature, or provi- 
dence. 

2. We are compelled to admit that there is neces- 
sarily an unsatisfied demand of law which, in the very 
nature of the case, neither the actual atonement made 
by Christ, nor any atonement conceivable, can ever 
meet; a demand of law kept at bay forevermore by 
mere prerogative. 

3. It is self-evident that any supposed grace in the 
relaxation of law in admitting Christ, would detract 
from the riches of grace in providing and delivering 
up Christ. Grace in consenting to accept a substitute 
when law made no provision for substitution, grace in 
accepting satisfaction at the hand of a substitute, and 
in accepting of the substitute an equivalent, when law 
in its full demand would have accepted neither the 
substitute nor the equivalent, is grace which robs the 
great atonement of its chief glory. Such grace is 
buried forever out of sight in the fathomless sea of 
that Infinite Grace which provided a Saviour whose 
qualifications, whose relation to, or rather perfect iden- 
tification with, his redeemed, whose relation to divine 
law in the utmost compass and extent of its demands, 

12 


178 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


not only rendered unnecessary, but impossible, tbe ex- 
ercise of dispensing power, or relaxation of law in ac- 
cepting him; unnecessary, superfluous, impossible, as to 
add to the light of noonday. 

4. To hold that there must be a relaxation of law 
that utmost virtue may be exercised, is to dishonor the 
law. 

5. A satisfaction by sovereign prerogative imposed 
upon law, might indeed have been rejected; but a sat- 
isfaction of any legal obligation which might without 
injustice be rejected, is a satisfaction in name rather 
than in reality. 

6. Conscience requires a satisfaction which justice 
cannot but accept. 

7. God can then show mercy, not merely apart from 
law, but setting aside, dispensing with, or relaxing law 
by mere prerogative. 

8. If there was relaxation in admitting Christ, then 
the absoluteness of the reign of law is not taught to 
all the universe by the Great Atonement. 

9. It is incredible that there should be these two 
ways of exercising mercy. 

10. The resources of law are more gloriously re- 
vealed, Conscience more fully satisfied and at rest, 
vastly greater “ Grounds of Gratitude ” furnished, the 
grace of God in giving Christ and the grace of Christ 
in making atonement more fully displayed, when the 
ineffable glory of “ sovereign prerogative ” is lifted 
up to its true place far above the utmost range of law ; 
when “dispensing power” and “relaxation of law” 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


179 


disappear even as morning clouds, leaving The Great 
Atonement in its utmost perfection, grandeur and glory 
over-arched with the cloudless sky — the utmost mani- 
festation of the utmost fulfilment of Unrelaxed Law. 

“ Grounds of Gratitude .” 

To defend the satisfaction theory of atonement it 
has been thought necessary to repel the charge that it 
represents the work of redemption as like a commer- 
cial transaction. To this end it has been thought nec- 
essary to to establish a very marked distinction be- 
tween even those very financial transactions unto 
which scripture so often compares it. Two points of 
distinction are specially insisted upon ; 1st. A pecu- 
niary obligation it is said is satisfied when the required 
sum is furnished, the question being, not “ who pays, 
but what is paid.” 2d. A pecuniary satisfaction, no 
matter by whom rendered, liberates the debtor, 
whereas in the case of crime the obligation is upon 
the person, and even when by relaxation of the law 
even the most perfect satisfaction that a mere substi- 
tute can render has been accepted, such satisfaction 
does not thoroughly discharge the obligation, does 
not liberate. 

I have in another place shown that the obligation 
of the debtor can be discharged only by himself, or by 
some one consenting to assume the obligation, in which 
case he becomes the debtor. As for the distinction in 
regard to the liberation or reinstatement of the debtor 


180 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


or sinner, to maintain that perfect satisfaction by an 
adequate substitute rendering an equivalent does not 
liberate or reinstate him in whose behalf it is ren- 
dered, is really a begging of the question. The lan- 
guage used by Turrettine shows clearly that the satis- 
faction he maintained was one that did not satisfy, and 
the equivalent was not equal. He has plainly revealed 
his real sentiment. Assuming that satisfaction by 
a substitute was wholly unprovided for in the nature 
of law, something that could not take place until, by 
sovereign prerogative, the law had been relaxed, not 
what law demanded, but what law was constrained to 
accept, he held that it could not discharge the obliga- 
tion. In this he was assuredly logical and consistent. 
A satisfaction such as law, allowed its own course, 
law unrelaxed , would reject, cannot be a satisfaction 
which thoroughly discharges the obligation. There 
fore there was a twofold exercise of sovereign prerog- 
ative : 1st. In relaxing the claims of law so as to ad- 
mit any substitute, even the most perfect ; 2d. In re- 

leasing those in whose behalf the substitute acted, 
since the substitute having done all that was possible 
for any substitute to do, the obligation was not tho- 
roughly discharged, and this for two reasons : 1st. The 
satisfaction was rendered by a substitute ; 2d. It was 

“ an equivalent and not at all the very thing that was 
owed.” 

Neither payment of debt nor satisfaction for 
crime, is ever the giving of “ so much for so much,” 
in the sense that any fixed and definite quantity is ab- 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


181 


solutely required for the payment or for the satisfac- 
tion. There is precisely the same latitude, the same 
provision for equivalents, in the one case as in the 
other. In all real satisfaction, whether for debt or for 
crime, there must be “ so much ” of value or worth, 
but so far from any necessity that there be “ so much ” 
in the sense that a definite and fixed measure or 
weight, or a “ constant and definite kind and degree of 
suffering ” are required, there is in the one case as in 
the other the widest range and room for the utmost 
variety, and yet always an exact equivalent or definite 
amount of real value. 

Now the orthodox themselves strenuously and 
frequently insist that Christ rendered an equivalent, 
that “ the dignity of his person gave value to his offer- 
ing.” They assuredly do not mean to admit that 
Christ’s satisfaction was something indefinite, inexact. 
With utmost reverence may it be said that “so much” 
was required of him and “ so much ” was rendered 
by him. In how many instances and in how many 
ways did our Lord clearly indicate that very definite 
and clearly defined and unalterably fixed covenant en- 
gagement bound him to fulfill all righteousness? 
Everything he did, everything that he suffered, was in 
fulfilment of the obligation he had assumed. 

The grounds of gratitude in the case of the debtor 
for whom a substitute has rendered satisfaction and 
the grounds of gratitude in the case of the sinner for 
whom the surety of the better testament has rendered- 
satisfaction, are not different in nature, as is strenuously 


182 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


argued. The marked difference so strenuously insist- 
ed on has no existence. There is an unanswerable vin- 
dication of the doctrine of the Reformed Churches 
from the puerile charges of ignorant or unscrupulous 
opposers of atonement. This answer has again and again 
been fully presented. It is that the double grounds 
of gratitude suggested by the ignorant or unscrupu- 
lous adversary have really no existence. All that we 
owe to Christ we owe to God who gave Christ. 

But the theory of double grounds of gratitude is 
utterly without foundation. It is astonishing to find 
it proposed seriously. In fact it is a virtual surrender 
to the enemies of atonement. The only difference be- 
tween this view and that of the persistent decriers of 
the atonement or satisfaction of Christ is a difference 
of degree. What Christ did made it proper for God to 
remit sin. All the opposers of atonement hold this. 
Some may judge that Christ did more and some less, 
but they all hold that God directly and graciously for- 
gave sin and released the sinner, not because justice 
and law were fully satisfied, but because God gra- 
ciously regarded as a satisfaction that which Christ of- 
fered. 

If God could accept, by mere arbitrary decision of 
his will, an offering that did not thoroughly discharge 
the obligation, no reason can be given why any 
offering, even the least, might not, on the same 
grounds, have been accepted. 

The infinite justice of God did not merely require 
that something be done. If it could have been satis- 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


183 


fied with something, it could have been satisfied with 
anything , nay without anything ; justice does nothing 
with a slack hand or in an inaccurate or inexact way. 
If justice act at all, it is as justice, and justice is not 
a question of more or less. 

Those holding to the orthodox view of atonment 
will always be charged “ with the folly of represent- 
ing the sacrifice of Christ as a purely commercial 
transaction ” for the simple reason that those who re- 
ject the orthodox view do always misapprehend and 
therefore misrepresent it. They believe that a given 
debt can be satisfied only by “ so much,” but that a 
given crime may be atoned for by so little; rather, 
they do not believe that God requires satisfaction at 
all. He requires that something be done, but not by 
any means that the full penalty be paid, nor even that 
an “ equivalent ” penalty be endured. They believe 
that the main ground of gratitude to God is that he 
remits sin, not because law has been satisfied and the 
full penalty endured, but that he remits sin in the ex- 
ercise of sovereign prerogative, having relaxed the 
law. They have therefore on their view broad and 
stable “ grounds of gratitude ” to God. But shall the 
orthodox, when pressed by the objection that accord- 
ing to their view of atonement, “God was in such a 
sense recompensed for his favors that, however much 
we may owe to Christ, we owe on this behalf none to 
God,” reply : “ We also , according to our view of re- 
demption, do owe gratitude to God, for, consider: 
Christ’s satisfaction being satisfaction by a substitute , 


184 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


Christ’s satisfaction being ‘ an equivalent ’ and 1 not the 
very thing that was owed,’ ‘ did not thoroughly dis- 
charge the obligation,’ ‘might have been rejected,’ 
‘ was accepted ’ and was ‘ regarded as a satisfaction ; ’ ” 
and this when the all-sufficient and “unanswerable vin- 
dication of the doctrine of the Reformed Churches” 
stands revealed in all its extent as in the light of noon- 
day ? The “ Satisfactionist ” who holds to the creed 
that “ Christ did make a proper, real and full satisfac- 
tion to God’s justice,” the satisfactionist who believes 
that our redemption was due to “ the actual execution, 
in strict rigor of justice of the unrelaxed penalty of 
the law,” has grounds of gratitude unto which nothing 
can be added, for the simple reason that all the ground 
that appears upon the surface of the* great world of re- 
demption is already his. The gratitude of a debtor, 
whose surety satisfied in his behalf a given legal obli- 
gation, is not divided unless, indeed, the surety offered 
a satisfaction that did not thoroughly discharge the 
obligation, i. e., unless the surety paid but a part of 
“what was owed.” If the surety for debt should pay 
all that was owed then, assuredly, the debtor would 
owe gratitude to the surety and none at all to the cred- 
itor. But surely blindness in part, if not total blind- 
ness, must have happened to the orthodox theologian 
who even tacitly admits that this result would follow 
if, indeed, Christ paid all we owed to the law of God. 
There are in the case of the redeemed absolutely no 
double grounds of gratitude. All that we owe to 
Christ for making in our behalf perfect atonement, we 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


185 


owe to God who gave Christ. He who gave us Christ 
gave us the atonement. The unspeakable gift of 
Christ funnishes ground of gratitude which excludes 
and renders impossible any such ground of gratitude 
as has been imagined. In point of fact no ground of 
gratitude can possibly be introduced except by detract- 
ing from the perfection of Christ’s work 

There is yet a much more serious and more funda- 
mental objection to the view maintained regarding 
sovereign prerogative, in dispensing with and relax- 
ing law in accepting Christ as our substitute. 

It is that it represents law as something apart from 
the will of God, and not only so, but as a barrier to be 
removed that the divine will and purpose may be ac- 
complished, as if law existed of itself, as if law, 
which proceeded from God at first, were an entity, self- 
asserting and mighty, yet under the authority of God, 
so that its demands, its most imperative demands, He 
can set aside, causing it to be content with something 
less or other than was claimed. 

This conflict between law and the will of God is 
purely imaginary. God does not govern law by his 
will, for law is nothing else than his will. I admit 
that there is a sphere quite above law wherein God 
acts. Nevertheless, God’s supremest act of sover- 
eignty consisted in providing, raising up and qualify- 
ing a mighty one who was to execute his sovereign 
pleasure in a way which, from first to last, not only 
fulfilled law, but magnified it and made it honorable. 

It is thought to be greatly to the honor of God that 


186 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


he is able, by mere prerogative, to “ suspend,” “ dis- 
pense with,” or “relax” law. It would be to his 
honor if law were, as some imagine, a self-existent 
“nature of things,” or if law, instead of being the 
will of God, were a creature of God having a will of 
its own, as some theologians, unwittingly it may be, 
represent it. But law being the will of God, he ac- 
complishes all that he does for the well-being of all his 
creatures in a way that honors law. And he has with 
wonderful emphasis and clearness and fullness of reve- 
lation declared to the intelligent universe that the ut- 
most honor is put upon the law by the work of re- 
demption. Is it then credible that the first step in the 
great work of redemption, by which from eternity it 
was determined that the law should be most gloriously 
fulfilled, magnified and made honorable, must neces- 
sarily be an act of sovereign prerogative, dispensing 
power, and relaxation of law ? 

SECTION SIXTH. 

The Essential Conditions of True and Proper 
Suretyship or Substitution. 

Careful study of the conditions or requirements 
common to all suretyship or substitution cannot fail 
to bring clearly into view the close analogy between 
the suretyship of Christ and that which has been fa- 
miliar among men in the entire history of our race, as 
also to show that this is a normal provision of law 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


187 


which has been wondrously, variously, continuously 
exemplified, leaving no room to doubt that God de- 
signed in this way to foreshadow the one transcendent 
instance and exemplification of suretyship which was 
determined from eternity and of which all instances 
of suretyship were designedly typical. 

I. The Surety or Substitute must be of the Same 
Nature . 

1. There has been no instance of substitution or 
suretyship in the whole range of human history in 
which this was not the case. The idea of any being 
lower than man being admitted as his substitute, is 
one that must be instantly and categorically dismissed 
without waiting to give any reason for such dismissal. 

2. It may not be so evident at first that no being of 
higher order than man, can possibly be his substitute. 
We can patiently and even hopefully look in this di- 
rection as we cannot in the other. Yet for the same 
season that none beneath us can be a real surety or 
substitute, viz. : because not of our nature, it is quite 
evident none above us can be. 

3. The obvious and all-sufficient reason which un- 
derlies the one already referred to is that the surety, 
or substitute, must become identified with those in 
whose behalf he acts. Oneness of nature is therefore 
necessary for this union. So that beings of superior 
nature are as effectually debarred from joining them- 
selves to us, and identifying themselves with us, and 
assuming our obligations to law, as those of inferior 
nature. This seems quite obvious from the very na- 


188 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


ture of suretyship and apart from the profoundly im- 
pressive lesson taught us by the fact that our great 
substitute who was made the “ Surety of the better 
testament ” behooved to assume our nature. 

4. Suretyship provided for in the nature of law, 
yet suretyship necessarily limited and confined to per- 
sons in the same nature with us, the great question on 
which hinged the hope of all the millions of our bank- 
rupt race was simply the question : Shall there be 
“raised up a Strong One from among the people, one 
in our nature to take our place and become answer- 
able for all our obligations to the law of God ? 

5. God’s revealed way of salvation is the glorious, 
complete, all-satisfying answer to this momentous 
question. “ The word w*as made flesh.” “ What the 
law could not do in that it was weak through the 
flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sin- 
ful flesh.” “ He took not on him the nature of an- 
gels.” This first, this self-evidently essential, condition 
of all true suretyship was found in Christ. 

II. A surety must be one who was free from the obli- 
gations of law , not under law. 

1. The surety for debt is free, not from all the obli- 
gations of law; he is, however, in such a sense free, that 
he is qualified to assume a specific, limited, definite ob- 
ligation in behalf of another, an obligation from 
which he was wholly free. 

2. Evidently then a surety who would be qualified 
to assume all our obligations unto law must be one 
who should be free from all the obligations of law. 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


189 


The condition on which a surety is allowed to assume a 
given obligation is that he be free from law so far as 
that particular obligation is concerned. If the same 
surety should propose to assume, one by one, more and 
more of our obligations, greater and 3 r et greater, until 
at last he should essay to assume them all, it is obvious 
that in that case it would be necessary that he be ex- 
empt from all the obligations of law. Reasoning 
then from what we know of suretyship as familiarized 
to all men, we might confidently conclude that no one 
could be surety for us but one who is quite free from 
law. 

3. Scripture clearly teaches that Christ being a di- 
vine person was not under the law and being possessed 
of perfect human nature he was qualified to be our 
surety, or substitute. This has all along been so clearly 
and fully taught by the orthodox that there is no need 
to do more than refer to it in this place. Christ, then, 
according to the clearly recognized qualification that 
a surety must be free from the legal obligations he 
proposes to assume, since he proposed to assume all our 
obligations, must be free from all, i. e., free from law. 
He was the only one possessed of this qualification 
which was essential for our deliverance from “ Our 
Debts,” i. e., from all that law demanded of us whether 
in its penalty or its precept. 

III. A surety or substitute is one who is free , volun- 
tary , sovereign , in assuming the obligations of an- 
other. 

1. Ho law requires any one to assume the legal ob- 


190 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


ligations of another. In this respect man’s freedom 
or sovereignty is recognized and respected. The real 
obligation resting upon an individual to assume and 
meet a certain obligation of his distressed neighbor, 
may be undeniably as great as his obligation to pay to 
another neighbor in similar distress the sum he owes 
him; yet the former obligation, even were it more 
pressing, the law does not enforce. It is not a legal 
obligation. In this and like matters, God has placed 
man in a sphere of true sovereignty which is the 
shadow or image of that sphere of sovereignty, above 
law, in which God himself acts ; and it may be added 
that the real character and the highest perfections 
whether of God or of men are displayed in their ut- 
most range in that sphere which is, in this sense, above 
law. 

2. The voluntariness of Christ in assuming our ob- 
ligations is so held forth in scripture and in religious 
literature that there is no need to dwell upon it here. 
No law required Christ to engage to be our substitute. 
Nothing but pure, mere free grace. 

IY. While a person proposing to be surety must be 
one who is free from law and must be purely volun- 
tary in the matter of his becoming surety, he must, 
in the exercise of his freedom, come under law. 
Thus only can he become a surety. Our Lord 
freely came under law, “ was made under the law to 
redeem them that were under the law.” Christ did 
not merely come under law in the sense that the de- 
mands of law came upon him as upon all subjects 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


191 


of law ; he came under law as law rested upon us, 
came under the precept of law as addressed to us, 
and under the penalty of the law as bearing upon 
us. It is in this specific sense that a surety comes 
under law when he assumes the debt of another, 
i. e., he comes under certain definite demands of law. 
Christ came under all the demands of law that were 
upon us, even as a surety comes under one of the 
least and the lightest of law’s demands. 

Y. Suretyship is constituted by covenant engagement 
which makes the surety one with those for whom he 
acts. 

This is true of all suretyship. No intimacy of 
relationship, no obligations of gratitude, no degree of 
fitness for suretyship, makes any one a surety, makes 
him legally one with those whom he proposes to de- 
liver from legal obligation. In short nothing consti- 
tutes suretyship and legal oneness but Covenant En- 
gagement. The freedom of the surety from law is 
perfect, he is in no sense legally one with those he pro- 
poses to rescue until, by covenant engagement, he be- 
come united to them, identified with them. 

“ Suretyship is a relation ” constituted by Covenant 
Engagement , u by which parties become Legally One and 
can be dealt with as such in Law y each individual of the 
Unit being bound in justice to suffer for the Unit , if 
necessary ; but the suffering is not the suffering of a 
part , but of the whole , in law 1 1 Because we thus judge 
that if one died for all then all died? ” 


192 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


The above statement of the conditions of surety- 
ship, or substitution is taken from one of a number of 
letters received from distinguished theologians to 
to whom in months past my views regarding substitu- 
tion as normal in law were submitted. It is with no 
little satisfaction I accept and insert here this admir- 
able, accurate, and, I might perhaps add, exhaustive 
definition of substitution and suretyship. I take the 
liberty of commenting on the above somewhat after 
the fashion of Barnes’ Notes. How perfectly, how ac- 
curately, the conditions of suretyship laid down, are 
fulfilled, in every particular, in the case of suretyship 
true and proper among men, as well as in the one 
transcendant instance of which all others were but 
the shadow, may be clearly seen. 

1. The names of three, or three hundred, persons 
affixed to a legal bond or note, such relation is consti- 
stuted that they “ become legally one ” and can be 
dealt with as such in law” 

2. “ Each individual ” of the legal unit is “ bound in 
justice to suffer for the unit.” 

3. “ If necessary,” i. e., if two of the three, or two 
hundred and ninety nine of the three hundred, are 
found unable to meet the legal obligation it then be- 
comes necessary, and the entire obligation falls upon 
the individual. This is not a theological dogma. 
This is law as it has been understood and administered 
in all time. Each intelligent signer of the bond must 
have known this when he affixed his name to the le- 
gal note. There may have been strong probabilities 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


193 


that it would never become necessary, but suretyship,, 
so far from leaving out of view that necessity, is a 
transaction which, in its very nature, keeps that possi- 
ble necessity fairly and fully in view. In fact, it is 
the possibility of that necessity that suretyship is, by 
its very nature, designed to provide for. 

4. “ Injustice .” When it becomes necessary that an 
individual of the legal unit be made answerable for the 
obligations originally resting on the three, or the three 
hundred, there is no injustice. Again let it be remem- 
bered this is not a theological dogma to be cast aside 
with contempt. This is law and custom. This oc- 
curs every day and all over the world. Let it be re- 
marked that it is not said no hardship , no suffering , but 
no injustice. Now unless the whole world has agreed 
to allow, without a word of protest, gross and manifest 
injustice, unless law, as administered in every nation 
under heaven, has been framed to sanction gross injustice 
in this way, then the whole world, then every govern- 
ment on earth, bears witness to the correctness of the 
definition of suretyship in this matter. This testimony, 
this witness, cannot be impeached or contemptuously 
dismissed by the smirking disciple of “ the best modern 
thought.” This is testimony which establishes beyond 
question that every individual of any given number 
of persons may without injustice be held answerable 
for the entire obligation resting upon all, and this, al- 
though his being held answerable, involve his suffering 
the loss of all that he hath. 

5. “ But the suffering ” — suffering whether in prop- 

13 


194 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


erty or in any other way — “ is not the suffering of a 
part, hut of the whole,” i. e., the individuals of the le- 
gal unit can say we paid, not merely the debt is paid, 
such an one of our number paid, we did not. No, 
such an one paid therefore we paid. Here again let it 
be noticed that this is not a theological dogma, but is 
the verdict of mankind. Paul’s argument is not pe- 
culiar to the theological doctrine he is setting forth. 
It is the precise line of argument all accept in regard 
to the satisfaction of legal obligation. 

6. “ In law.” In any other sense than in law, 
neither the two, nor the two hundred and ninety-nine, 
paid. All the credit of making payment is assuredly 
to be given to the “ one ” who paid “for all,” neverthe- 
less “ in law ” it is true that “ all ” paid. 

7. “ Because we thus judge.” Yes, men do “ thus 
judge ” that if one paid “ for all ” then all paid. If 
men object to Paul’s reasoning, in the text quoted, it 
is not because they do not judge and reason in pre- 
cisely the same way and on principles identical with 
those so clearly announced by the inspired apostle, but 
because they reason and “judge ” clearly and correctly 
in financial and legal matters of everyday life, whereas 
in moral and theological questions they remain, and 
are content to remain, in sheer ignorance or with very 
vague and inexact notions or sentiments. 

V. While a surety must be one who was free, and 
who voluntarily came under law, and by covenant en- 
gagement became legally one with those in whose 
behalf he engages, all that he does as surety must he 


SUBSTITUTION NOKMAL IN LAW 


195 


done in mere and exact obedience to law. This holds 
good in the case of all suretyship from the least to the 
greatest actual or conceivable instance. It is true of 
an ordinary surety for debt as it is of the surety of the 
better testament. In the one case as in the other the 
freedom, the sovereignty, the grace consists in consent- 
ing and engaging; having consented and engaged, 
thenceforward there is nothing possible to be done in 
the matter other than, or in any sense beyond, mere 
exact fulfilment of obligation to law. The grace in 
consenting to become surety depends upon the cer- 
tainty and the faithfulness with which all the legal ob- 
ligations assumed shall be discharged by the surety. 

VI. The surety in addition to the qualifications al- 
ready mentioned must in every case be fully able to 
meet and discharge all the legal obligations he assumes 
without involving ruin or permanent injury to himself, \ 
and without his failing of a full reward. 

It is because this essential condition of all proper 
suretyship and substitution has been too often over- 
looked, has not been kept steadily in view, that this 
transaction has been regarded by many as one that in- 
volves injustice, and therefore one than cannot be pro- 
vided for and admitted in the very nature of law. No 
surety or substitute can properly be permitted to as- 
sume the legal obligations of others, whether these be 
obligations to fulfill the precept or to meet the penalty 
of law, except where there is the absolute assurance 
that the conditions just specified exist, i. e., 1. The 
substitute must survive. 2. He must be in the end no 


196 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


loser. 3. Must be rewarded fully. And that these 
conditions may be realized it is necessary ( a ) that 
what is required of a surety, or rather what he is per- 
mitted to undertake, shall be that which is speedily 
accomplished or “ by one offering,” and ( b ) that this 
may be the case an equivalent is provided for and is 
accepted, and fully satisfies the obligation. If it be an 
equivalent it could not fail to satisfy. So that an 
equivalent is not merely “ regarded as a satisfaction,” 
as Turrettine affirms; it is a satisfaction. 

2. Every one of the conditions above adduced may 
be found meeting in an ordinary case of suretyship 
among men, as well as in the great example of which 
these are but types. A surety for debt survives, is not 
in the long run a loser, provided he were justifiable in 
becoming surety. His reward is assured beyond 
doubt by the Righteous Judge of all the earth. The 
obligation he assumes he is able to meet at once, “ by 
one offering,” then what he offers is an equivalent, 
i. e., money which stands for any and every kind of 
real wealth which ministers to man’s comfort and well- 
being. There is no finer illustration of the admissi- 
bility of equivalents in meeting legal obligations than 
the use of money representing value. Any debt is 
fully paid when an equivalent is rendered for the 
value received. The law and not the debtor deter- 
mines what is a true equivalent. But the law always 
provides that the debtor may satisfy the obligation by 
rendering any equivalent which the creditor consents 
to accept. 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


197 


VII. A true surety is always a true and proper 
substitute, and having rendered to the law “the very 
thing that was owed,” or that which the law itself pro- 
vides for — an equivalent — the reinstatement of all 
those in whose behalf satisfaction has been made, is a 
necessity, is a matter of mere justice and not of grace. 
Any offering rendered by a proposed substitute which 
does not necessitate reinstatement as a matter of sim- 
ple justice, cannot be called a satisfaction. In fact the 
end contemplated by substitution is the reinstatement 
of him who is under condemnation of law, whether as 
a debtor or as a sinner. To this end the substitute 
voluntarily assumes, and has legally imputed to him, 
the entire obligation, so that having fully discharged 
it, the release, or legal righteousness, may be imputed 
to the debtor or sinner in whose behalf he acted. No 
substitution, no suretyship, is admissible either for 
debt, or for crime, except such as ensures the perfect 
reinstatement of all in whose behalf it is undertaken. 
The surety is not one who acquires rights and immu- 
nities which he can distribute as he pleases and to 
whom he pleases; since by the very nature of surety- 
ship it is for certain definitely named parties, with 
whom the surety has become identified by assuming, 
with them, a common obligation. Neither the “Surety 
of the better testament” nor any benevolent surety 
among men ever met legal obligations for an unde- 
fined or indefinite number of persons. Suretyship or 
substitution of this kind is purely imaginary. It is 
neither taught in scripture nor admitted or exempli- 


193 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


fied among men. Such suretyship is manifestly inad- 
missible for the reason that it ensures nothing. That 
good results should in some other way be ensured does 
not save from condemnation a transaction which in its 
very nature is a mere venture , and which, considered in 
itself, is at least as likely to be a failure as a success. 
Such transactions are not allowed, either by law or 
custom, among men. No substitution is admitted that 
does not of itself reinstate those in whose behalf it is 
undertaken. 

VIII. Perfect suretyship does not only reinstate, it 
delivers from law and places “ under grace ” those in 
whose behalf satisfaction has been rendered. 

1. So far as a given debt is concerned when satisfac- 
tion has been rendered for said debt by a surety ren- 
dering any equivalent which the law allows — and all 
law provides for a number of equivalents, all law pro- 
vides also for the rendering of any equivalent which 
the creditor consents to accept — the debtor is instantly 
delivered from law and comes instantly under grace. 
Nor is it possible for him again to come under law, so 
far as that debt or obligation is concerned. Nor is it 
possible for him to cease to be under grace to him who 
became his surety, for the manifest reason that the 
new obligation is one of gratitude which, strictly 
speaking, is one that in its own nature is lasting, en- 
during, inextinguishable. “ Ye are not under law , but 
under grace” Delivered from law by a surety, the 
person delivered is not, as many imagine, remanded to 
the law as before. He who satisfies one legal obliga- 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


199 


tion in behalf of another delivers him at once and for- 
ever from law, so far as that one obligation is concerned, 
and places him at once and forever under grace, so far 
as that one matter is concerned. Our Lord by 
his assuming the place of his redeemed, and taking 
upon him and becoming answerable for all their obli- 
gations, delivers them from law, so that in the fullest 
sense of the terms they “ are not under law , but under 
grace” But it must be remembered that deliverance 
from law in this way, so far from being deliverance 
from obligation, involves their coming under even 
greater obligations. The obligations of grace are 
weightier, are instinctively felt to be weightier and 
more sacred and more urgent than legal obligations. 
This is keenly felt by every one whose moral percep- 
tions and sensibilities have not been sadly impaired. 
In the case of those redeemed by Christ the obliga- 
tions they are under are obligations of pare grace, but 
these like a very flood rise and “ prevail ” and cover 
many fathoms deep the highest mountain of merely 
legal obligation. The obligations of the redeemed 
who are “ under grace ” are obligations which, in their 
very nature, are not only enduring and inextinguisha- 
ble, but the weight and sacredness of these obligations 
must be more and more appreciated as “ the benefits 
of redemption ” are revealed and enjoyed in the eter- 
nal ages. 

IX. Perfect suretyship carries with it not merely 
reinstatement, but confirmation. 

1. It is true, a debtor reinstated before the law by 


200 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


the full payment of a single legal obligation he was 
under, may fall under another condemnation. But 
let it be considered that the condemnation from which 
a surety delivered him can never come upon him. So 
far as that particular condemnation of law is concerned 
he is not only reinstated, but confirmed, i. e., he is 
righteous before the law and can never be condemned 
in that matter. 

2. But suppose the surety had assumed and met all 
his obligations to law, nay, had become legally answer- 
able for all that he owed, or could possibly ever owe 
to the law, is it not manifest that this would ensure not 
merely his reinstatement, but his confirmation ? The 
difference between assuming part of our obligations 
and assuming all our obligations is the difference be- 
tween condemnation and justification. A surety who 
should pay but part of what was owed would leave 
him in whose behalf he acted under precisely the 
same condemnation as before. So a surety who should 
assume and meet only part of our obligations w ould 
leave us under the same condemnation. 

3. Beasoning from the nature of suretyship and the 
necessary results of suretyship, as these are recognized 
among men, it is clear that suretyship extending to all 
that we, in any way, owe, or can owe, to the law of 
God would necessitate, not merely reinstatement, but 
confirmation, since these results actually follow all 
true and proper suretyship among men; i. e., there is 
not only reinstatement, but confirmation, so far as the 
special and limited obligation is concerned. 


SUBSTITUTION NORMAL IN LAW 


201 


The objeetions ordinarily urged against the admis- 
sibility of substitution or suretyship as fully satisfying 
law, when carefully analyzed, always prove to be mere 
objections to an inadequate substitute. A perfect 
substitute, one possessed of all the qualifications neces- 
sary to render satisfaction to law, law unrelaxed al- 
ways accepts. 

Law in its very nature provides for, admits and is 
fully satisfied with an adequate substitute. Accord- 
ingly there was no need for, no room for, an act of “ dis- 
pensing power ” in order to the admission of Christ as 
our substitute. 

1. Substitution is admitted in law as understood and 
administered by man, in all cases in which an adequate 
substitute freely offers his services, not merely in the 
payment of debt, but in satisfaction for crime, pro- 
vided the penalty be such that the substitute offering 
himself is fully competent to meet it. 

2. The vast interval between such substitution as 
mere man may furnish, and that of Christ, is to be ac- 
counted for, not on the ground that law in its nature 
is opposed to substitution, but simply on the ground 
that adequate substitutes cannot be found. 

3. This provision in the very nature of the law 
opens the way for the noblest exercise of virtue or 
benevolence on the part of creatures, and not only so, 
but for the exercise of the utmost love of God in pro- 
viding for redemption by Christ. 

4. To attribute to God an arbitrary exercise of 
sovereign dispensing power in setting aside the claims 


202 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


of law is to make the fatal admission that mercy may 
be shown without atonement. 

5. Divine mercy consisted in providing, raising up 
and freely giving Christ, and in Christ’s freely offering 
himself. But Christ having been raised up, having 
been delivered up, having voluntarily come under 
law, then mere justice required of him the payment 
of the full penalty. 

6. Atonement by Christ is therefore the highest in- 
stance and exemplification of that which is provided 
for in the very nature of law, and that which is fa- 
miliar to all men. It is not unique, incomprehensi- 
ble, or inimitable, but differs from substitution, as fa- 
miliarized in thousands of ways to all men, in degree 
and not in hind. 

7. All benevolent helpful work by one for another 
has in it the element of substitution. A cup of cold 
water given to a wounded soldier is given by one who 
is a true and proper substitute, so far as that one mat- 
ter is concerned. It is not only something done for 
him or for his benefit, but is done in his stead. 

8. Human redemption results from the coming 
under law of one able to do for us all we needed to 
have done for us, able to bear all our burdens, and to 
bear them in a way perfectly analogous to that in 
which mere men bear one another’s burdens. Christ 
redeemed us, not by obeying a unique and special 
commandment, but by coming under a law that is 
universal. 


CHAPTER IV 


SUBSTITUTION OBEDIENCE TO LAW 

“ Bear ye one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law 
of Christ.” So fulfill the law which Christ enjoins 
upon all his disciples? Yes, and so fulfill the law 
which Christ himself most gloriously fulfilled; for 
surely this is a law which is binding upon all subjects 
of law, including the highest and mightiest, even 
Christ himself. This obligation cannot be assumed to 
be restricted to any class or order. It extends unto 
and rests upon all who are under the law of God. 

If this law be binding upon all the question arises, 
What is the extent of this requirement? What limit 
is there to the required burden- bearing in behalf of 
others ? Are there any burdens which the benevolent 
may not bear, any distress that a brother able to re- 
lieve, is by the law of God forbidden to relieve? 
Does the law of God set a limit to the extent to which 
one may help another either by doing or suffering in 
his behalf or in his stead ? 

To maintain that substitution, such as that of Christ, 
in which all the burdens we were under were borne in 
our behalf, in which all the evils we were under were 


204 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


quite removed, is something unprovided for in the 
very nature of law, something not permitted by the 
law, but by the arbitrary decision of the will of the 
Lawgiver, a decision which overrules and sets aside 
the claims of law, is in reality to maintain that the 
law of God does not provide for, but forbids the ut- 
most manifestation of virtue. 

Is such view of the law of God tenable ? Bather is it 
not true that God’s law not only provides for and ad- 
mits, but enjoins and requires the utmost helpfulness, 
the utmost virtue f What Christ does for those whom 
he redeems and saves differs not in its nature, but only 
in extent, from that which is required of all in be- 
friending and helping those who are in trouble and in 
need. It detracts nothing from the glory of Christ, 
nor from the perfection of his work to regard Him as 
the highest subject of law, and his work as the high- 
est fulfillment of law. Christ and his work are sepa- 
rated from all servants of God who are mere creatures, 
and from all their works, by an infinite superiority 
without conceiving of Christ as exceeding in the 
slightest degree the real requirements of the law he 
came under, or his work as in its nature separated at 
all from virtue, grace, charity, in the least and lowliest 
of those made in the image of God. Scripture in 
many places calls us to contemplate Christ’s work for 
us as exceeding, indeed, immeasurably, that which one 
man may do or can do for another. “ Scarcely for a 
righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a 
good man some would even dare to die ; but God com- 


SUBSTITUTION OBEDIENCE TO LAW 


205 


mendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet 
sinners, Christ died for us.” Yet this and like texts 
represent Christ’s work, not as in its nature differing 
from that which may be done by man, but only in its 
extent. This text marks the utmost limit to which 
mere human love, virtue and self-sacrifice can reach, 
and shows how wonderfully Christ’s work transcends 
this limit. 

Substitution is simply one taking the place of an- 
other to do or to suffer in his stead. In fact whatso- 
ever is done for another in the way of charity is done 
in his place and as his substitute. Substitution true 
and proper enters into the ordinary acts of brotherly 
kindness between friends and neighbors. He who 
gathers in the ripened harvest for his neighbor who 
has been prostrated with sickness, gathers in the har- 
vest in his stead and as his substitute. By substitution 
is meant nothing more than the taking upon one’s self 
the burden, the labor, the penalty, or the obligations 
of another. To say that the law of God forbids or 
does not of itself allow, substitution to the fullest ex- 
text of the ability of each subject of law, is to say 
that law forbids the able and willing to help the needy 
in their need ; to say that law sets a limit to substitu- 
sion, is to say that it forbids the utmost helpfulness. 

So far from restraining the able from doing all in 
their power for the benefit of their fellow-men in their 
need, the law of God requires this. But all that is 
done, all that can be none in this way, involves substi- 
tution. This is beautifully and forcibly expressed in 


206 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


the oldest book that has come down to us. Job sums 
up his life of benevolence and charity, and sets forth 
at the same time the true nature of all charitable 
deeds, when he says : “ / was eyes to the blind, feet was 1 
to the lame. 11 Under severe analysis every truly char- 
itable work reveals the element of substitution. The 
mistake of those who have insisted that Christ’s work 
was not like works of benevolence, charity or self- 
sacrifice, such as are common among men, is that they 
failed to recognize the truly vicarious element in the 
commonest acts of charity, as well as in the one great 
act of charity of which all others are but the shadow. 
The generalizing which robs Christ’s great atonement 
of its truly vicarious or substitutionary character can- 
not be too strongly condemned. The true answer to 
such representations is that the truly vicarious enters 
as an element into all charitable works. To deny the 
truly vicarious in the work of Christ on the ground 
that his work is like those works which man may do, 
is to misapprehend both the work of Christ and that 
of mere men, for in both there is the truly vicarious. 

The obligation to bear one another’s burdens can- 
be restricted or limited ; it must extend to all who are 
under law. That Christ, having voluntarily come un- 
der law, was not under this obligation must not be as- 
sumed. To assume this is to discredit alike the law 
and Christ’s obedience to law. The grace of Christ 
did not consist in his doing what the law he came un- 
der did not require of him, but in his coming under 
law , which in its own nature did require of him all that 


SUBSTITUTION OBEDIENCE TO LAW 


207 


lie did in our behalf. Nor must it be thought that the 
voluntariness, or graciousness of Christ’s work is at all 
discredited by the fact that it was mere obedience to 
law. There is, there can be, no virtue in any subject 
of law transcending the mere requirements of law. 
For the law is the expression of the perfections of God 
himself. The law had no claim upon the Son; there 
was no obligation upon him to come under its com- 
mandment. His doing this was pure, mere, free grace. 
To this he was moved by nothing but his divine com- 
passion. But found under law, under that law which 
with its precept and its penalty was against us, he, as 
the result of his own act of grace in joining himself 
to us, and by virtue of his being every way fully qual- 
ified to rescue us from ruin, was under imperative ob- 
ligation. The law then directly demanded of him, 
since he was found under the very law which was upon 
us, all that we owed, whether payment of penalty or 
obedience to the precept. 

That the work of Christ in behalf of the redeemed 
was peformed in obedience to the commandment of 
God none deny. That it was mere obedience to the 
same law which binds all moral beings, and that all 
the glorious results secured by Christ’s obedience are 
due to the ^iufi nite power and resources of Him w'ho 
rendered the obedience, and not to a unique and spe- 
cial law or commandment addressed to Him alone, is 
not so generally accepted. I have been led to very 
decided conviction that this is the true view of Christ’s 
work, and also that any view short of this, however it 


208 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


may seem to glorify the grace of God and of Christ, 
and to set aloft the whole work of redemption as above 
law, does in reality cast dishonor upon the law of God. 
Redemption, devised and arranged in pure and mere 
sovereignty, with its measureless grace as the utmost 
manifestation of the perfections of God, required no 
new, no unique, no special law under which it should 
be “wrought out;” for not only was law from the 
same divine mind which devised redemption, but re- 
demption itself was contemplated from eternity and 
provided for in the very nature of law, so that noth- 
ing was necessary but that God should should send his 
own Son to accomplish, by mere obedience to law, 
what none but a divine servant of God could accom- 
plish. “ What the law could not do in that it was 
weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in 
the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin 
in the flesh.” This text teaches most emphatically 
the adequacy of the law when obeyed by “ God’s own 
son.” 

Christ freely came under law which required him 
to do for those given him of the Father all that he 
has done ; so that his voluntarily coming under law 
was his voluntarily consenting to be our substitute. 
The voluntariness of Christ must not be regarded as 
in any sense inconsistent with the absolute requirement 
of law. The voluntariness in which the work of 
Christ originated is voluntariness which, in the very 
nature of the case, pervades every part of his obedi- 
ence, even his “ obedience unto death.” Substitution 


SUBSTITUTION OBEDIENCE TO LAW 


209 


provided for in the very nature of law, substitu- 
tion admitted in law always and in every case in 
which, an every way adequate substitute is offered, that 
which is rendered by a substitute, whether it be the 
“ very thing that was owed,” or an equivalent, fully 
satisfies law. 

Law does not require substitution. It does not re- 
quire of him who is free from its obligations that he 
come under its power. There is no law requiring even 
of him who is most fully qualified, that he come under 
law or under any one of the obligations of law so as 
to be a substitute for another. But having come un- 
der law, being found under law, then he being qualified 
to deliver the perishing the law requires this of him. 
I know that in the case of Christ all was determined 
in one free act of choice. There must not be imag- 
ined a double choice, 1st, In consenting to come under 
law ; 2d, In freely consenting to be our substitute. 
The first act contained all ; for the law which Christ 
consented to come under was one that required of Him 
his substitutionary offering of himself. 

The law avails itself instantly of the glorious per- 
fections, qualifications and resources of the Mighty 
one, the Almighty one, who comes under it. The law 
itself commands Him and requires of him that he who 
is fully able should obey it by rendering all that it de- 
manded, and this by one offering. If the law require 
more of Him than of any other, it is solely because he 
hath more to give. 

This view is finely presented by Bunyan, in that 


210 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


passage in which. Great-heart explains to “ Christiana, 
Mercy and the rest of them ” how they obtain the 
gift of righteousness by Jesus Christ. 

“He has therefore another righteousness, which 
standeth in performance, or obedience to a re- 
vealed will : and that is what he puts upon sinners, 
and that by which their sins are covered. Wherefore 
he saith, 1 As by one man’s disobedience many were 
made sinners ; so by the obedience of one shall many 
be made righteous.’ 

Here then is a righteousness . . . that he for him- 
self wanteth not, and therefore giveth it away. Hence 
it is called “the gift of righteousness.” This right- 
eousness, since Christ Jesus the Lord has made himself 
under the law, must be given away ; for the law doth 
not only bind him that is under it, to do justly, but to 
use charity. Wherefore he must, or ought by the 
law, if he hath two coats, to give one to him that has 
none. How, our Lord indeed hath two coats, one for 
himself, and one to spare : wherefore he freely bestows 
one upon those that have none. And thus, Christiana 
and Mercy, and the rest of you that are here, doth 
your pardon come by deed, or by the work of another 
man. Your Lord Chiist is he that worked, and hath 
given away what he wrought for, to the next poor 
beggar he meets.” 

“ No law required this ? 1 ’ If it be meant tnat no law 
required the raising up of a strong one, mighty to 
save, able to save to the uttermost, if this be all that 
is meant, then I give to this assertion the fullest assent. 


SUBSTITUTION OBEDIENCE TO LAW 


211 


The law of God as it came forth from God, His whole 
will, the fullest expression of his moral perfections in 
the form of law, of commandment unto all subjects of 
law did require substitution and deliverance from all 
evil by means of substitution, so that whosoever was 
competent to be a substitute and thereby furnish de- 
liverance to his brethren was under obligation of law 
to bear the burden of the needy. Then a strong one 
appearing and actually raised up, and this irrespective 
of the manner in which he was raised up, and solely 
on the ground of his actually coming under law — be- 
ing found under law — he was under an infinite obliga- 
tion to help and to save even by doing for the perish- 
ing all that he was able to do, that is, all they needed 
to have done for them. This obligation of law Christ 
perpetually and in all things recognized, under this all- 
including obligation his whole work was undertaken 
and accomplished. He simply obeyed law . For Him, 
the divine Son of God in our nature, to obey law was 
indeed a grand and glorious, and transcendant and in- 
finitely momentous work. His obedience to law, sim- 
ple and mere obedience though it were, rose heaven 
high in its gloriousness above any and all other in- 
stances of obedience ; in its gloriousness and in its re- 
sults in every direction, towards the guilty and fallen, 
towards God and law and justice; and all this glorious- 
ness of the obedience, and of its results, is due to the 
character of Him who obeyed. He became obedient 
unto death. Who shall dare to say that he transcend- 
ed obedience ? This would be to add unto the mani- 


212 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


fesily exhaustive and the designedly exhaustive declar- 
ation of this notable oracle of the word : “ He became 

obedient unto death , even the death of the cross.” To 
admit the thought of somewhat beyond mere obedience 
to law, even with the best of intentions and with the 
idea of honoring our Lord, is to detract from the ex- 
cellence of law, i. e., of God from whom law proceeds. 
Super -legal goodness not even Christ himself could en- 
act, for the infinitude of God’s goodness God’s law it- 
self contains. Glorious and ample scope for utmost 
liberty and utmost love and benevolence is found in 
the expanse of the heaven of law as it over-arches all 
subjects of law, and as it is high enough and wide 
enough to over-arch the grandest subject of law, the 
one servant of God who was able to fulfill law both 
in its precept and in its penalty to the uttermost, or 
rather who in himself and by his own transcendant 
act of obedience fulfilled the law in its utmost require- 
ment. 

To hold that Christ, having been found under law, 
was not under obligation to do just what he did, 
though this were held with the sole view of magnify- 
ing Christ’s grace, is nevertheless to hold a view that 
darkens and over-clouds the whole work of Christ. 
There is sovereignty, there is free, mere and pure 
grace, above law, and from God and from Christ ; but 
sovereignty is glorious in its own sphere. That 
sphere is not under law, but above law. Sovereignty 
and free grace consisted solely in providing Christ the 
substitute. To imagine that Christ should have come 


SUBSTITUTION OBEDIENCE TO LAW 


213 


under law, and then should be free to obey or disobey 
law, to obey so far and no farther, to imagine that sove- 
reignty prevails at all in this matter of obedience, is 
to introduce only confusion. “Ought not Christ to 
have suffered.” It became him “ to fulfill all right- 
eousness.” The obligation was upon him. In under- 
taking this obligation in eternity he was free. He 
acted from the glorious height of absolute sovereignty 
and from pure love and mercy. Having engaged to 
obey — to obey voluntarily — this one engagement in 
all its infinitude of binding obligation rested upon him. 
This obligation he ever kept in view. His whole 
work is misinterpreted, misapprehended, its glorious- 
ness veiled, unless the clear light of this infinite obli- 
gation is allowed to shine with noonday glory ever 
upon it. “ I must be about my father’s business ” — 
“It is finished.” The boy twelve years old in the 
temple, the Christ dying on the cross , and all the in- 
tervening scene, none can interpret, but in the bright 
light of one all-embracing obligation ever kept in 
view. The will of Christ wrought freely under the 
will of God. Nothing did Christ but according to the 
will, law, command of God, in mere, pure obedience 
unto law. 

Christ was indeed the only servant of God who was 
adequate to the great task of redeeming the lost. The 
law of God manifestly, and as interpreted even by 
those least instructed, binds all to be helpers of others 
in their need, helpers to the extent of their ability. 

But for Christ, the law of God, in its utmost re* 


214 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


quirements, had been forevermore unobeyed ; the 
extent of the commandment had never been fully 
known. But for Christ, virtue, goodness, excellence, 
consisting in obedience to law, had never been shown 
forth in perfection. 

The pyramid of virtue had never been completed, 
for the reason that no servant of God, not all the ser- 
vants of God, could have revealed the hidden re- 
sources of law, since they could never have done, even 
for one sinner, all that he needed to have done for 
him. This achievement only the Son of God, in the 
capacity of a Servant, and under law, could accom- 
plish. Well may heaven and earth be called to shout 
together at the accomplishment of this glorious work, 
for it is, “ Glory to God in the highest, and on earth 
peace and good will to men.” 


CHAPTER Y. 


INTERVENTION. 

A Man shall be as the Shadow of a Great Rock 
in a weary land.— Isai a.h. 

The hope of deliverance for those exposed to evil or 
danger from the power of law, whether natural or 
moral, is not that law shall be suspended, relaxed or 
turned aside from its aim, or its penalties, in any way, 
mitigated or modified, but that there shall be, in some 
way, intervention of adequate power operating in a 
way to meet the force of law. This truth, regarding 
the way of deliverance from danger or evil, is itself a 
law universal and absolute, and one that is illustrated 
and confirmed by instances and examples innumerable 
and varied, in the whole range of human history. 
The inviolability of law is taught in a way that leaves 
no room for doubt or misapprehension, taught in scrip- 
ture, in nature, in human experience, taught always 
and everywhere. 

The deepest and most radical objection, and one 
which is ever brought against the accepted theory of 
redemption, is that it represents law as relaxing its 
claims. It is charged that there is a relaxation of 


216 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


law necessarily implied in the admission of the inno- 
cent to take the place of the guilty and become an- 
swerable to the law for them. Unfortunately Chris- 
tian teachers have given much occasion for this charge, 
in that they have taught that there was a relaxation 
of law’s rigid and exact claims in admitting Christ as 
the substitute and surety of the redeemed; whereas 
the glory of the redemption wrought by Christ is that 
it, in no respect, interferes with the reign of law in its 
utmost exactness. Kedemption by atonement is the 
one grand demonstration to the universe that law can- 
not yield. This truth which underlies all philosophy, 
this truth which cannot be called in question without 
destroying the very foundations, is just the truth 
which is lifted up into glorious and awful prominence 
by the work of redemption. If law cannot be re- 
laxed, if law must move on in its own exact and abso- 
lute reign, is there no possibility of escape for the vio- 
lator of law, or for those who are in any way, or for 
any reason, found exposed to danger and evil from the 
onward movement of law? Nature and Scripture 
alike forbid the hope of escape by means of the sus- 
pension of law, or any relaxation or mitigation of its 
penalties. Nature everywhere suggests, and Scripture 
everywhere plainly and abundantly reveals, the one 
only door of hope. It is the intervention of power 
or means adequate to deal with law, meet its force and 
thus protect and deliver those exposed to evil. From 
the cradle to the grave the individual, from the dawn 
of human history to the present time the race, have 


INTERVENTION 


217 


been familiarized with the one only source of danger 
and with the one only way of deliverance: The one 
only source of danger — Violated Law; The one only 
way of deliverance — The Satisfaction of Law. 

The following propositions regarding intervention 
as the one only way of deliverance from the penalty 
of violated law, if not self-evident, will perhaps be ac- 
cepted without hesitation by all who will consent to 
consider them candidly : 

L All danger or evil to which moral beings are or 
can be exposed in this world, or in any other, arises 
from the onward movement of forces that are obeying 
law. 

II. The history of mankind furnishes no instance of 
escape or deliverance from such danger or evil, either 
by suspension of law, relaxation of law, or mitigation 
of its penalty. 

III. The one only way of deliverance is by inter- 
vention of power adequate to deal with law, meeting 
its full force 

IV. The kind of intervention necessary in each 
case, is determined by the kind and extent of the dan- 
ger, the nature and character of the forces threat- 
ening. 

V. The Great Atonement is in exact accordance 
with the one only way of deliverance from the power 
of violated law, as taught throughout the entire king- 
doms of Nature and Providence, viz. : Intervention 
of power, adequate to deal with law and deliver the 
exposed. 


218 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


VI. Intervention is the act of powers or persons 
themselves under law, and is performed under and in 
accordance with law. It is not and cannot be the di- 
rect and mere act of the Lawgiver. This is taught in 
Nature and in Providence, but especially in Redemp- 
tion, in that God himself, when he would rescue those 
exposed to evil, sent his own Son, “ made under the 
law.” 

The correctness of these propositions may be illus- 
trated by any instance of danger or evil, actual or con- 
ceivable. From the countless multitude and endless 
variety of actual instances a few may serve for illus- 
tration : 

Stones and rubbish from a lofty scaffolding are seen 
to commence their fall to the ground. A group of 
children are beneath. Strong, brave men are the on- 
lookers. They have not learned the new theology. 
They are not “ in sympathy with the best modern 
thought.” They witness the operation of that univer- 
sal law which is in wondrous ways most beneficent. 
It makes of myriads of worlds a universe. It binds 
unto each of these worlds, and holds in their places, 
beings and things in utmost harmony. It is a law 
that must not be suspended, must not be reversed, 
must not be unreliable. The stones and rubbish must 
fall, whether there be beneath innocent children or in- 
carnate fiends; for law is no respecter of persons. 
Law strikes the innocent, so called, quite as promptly 
as the guilty, if they be found in its way. Rather law 
counts no one innocent who is found exposed to its 


INTERVENTION 


219 


penalties. Law listens to no excuses, waits for no ex- 
planation. We should have chaos, not cosmos, if it 
did. The ringlets on the loveliest brow may be 
drenched with blood, the sparkling light in bright 
eyes may be quenched, but law cannot be mocked. 
But the strong men, the brave men, who look on — do 
they say : “ This group of children seem, indeed, to be 
in danger, but they are innocent, or if not wholly inno- 
cent, is not God merciful ? His law will be suspended 
or relaxed. These falling stones will descend lightly, 
or will in some way be turned aside so that the threat- 
ened evil will not come ?” By no means ; for they 
are sane men. They know that there is no hope of 
the suspension of law. They know that God is mer- 
ciful and also that he commands them to be merciful, 
even as their “ Father in heaven is merciful,” merciful 
in rescuing the perishing in a way that interferes not 
with the reign of law. To rescue the exposed and help- 
less in obedience to a law that is to the moral universe 
quite as necessary as the law of gravitation to the 
material, they place a shield over the defenceless heads, 
regardless of wounds and bruises to themselves. When 
this takes place no law is violated. Rather the scope 
and resources of law are unfolded. Law triumphs 
over law and honors the law over which it triumphs. 

“God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb ?” By 
direct interference with the fierce law that governs the 
wintry storm ? God tempers the wind to the shorn 
lamb ? Sentiment, mere sentiment unsupported by a 
solitary shred of evidence. I beg pardon of these 


220 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


sweet souls whose philosophy of redemption, whose 
system of theology, whose creed, beginning and end of 
it, is simply this : “ God tempers the wind to the shorn 
lamb.” I ask, What god ? Assuredly not the God 
who rules this world. Let there be “a scientific test,” 
a test by the thermometer. On the bleak hill-top let 
the shorn lamb stand side by side with the unshorn. 
Ah ! your poetic fancy is driven as chaff before the 
wind. Proclaim it in this world, proclaim it in all 
worlds. God does not temper the wind to the shorn 
lamb. That is Satan’s theology, the same he taught 
in Eden : “Ye shall not surely die.” It is not in ac- 
cordance with scripture, with man’s experience or ob- 
servation ; it is not simply nonsense, it is a deceptive 
and ruinous error. The shepherd who should accept 
this as his creed could not be called “ the good shep- 
herd.” The good shepherd is not, must not be, a fool. 
His creed must not be made of poetic fancies, but of 
substantial and even awful realities. God has indeed 
provided a way for the protection of shorn lambs, but 
it is one that includes the utmost care and pains on the 
part of the good shepherd, in gathering them into the 
warm and secure fold ; a way that in no sense inter- 
feres with the onward movement of the most terrific 
storm, according to its own law. Relief, deliverance, 
protection, come by intervention alone, by interven- 
tion of power or means adapted to the necessities of 
the case. This is God’s way. In this way law is hon- 
ored, in that it has full and free scope, honored in that 
its force is met ; in this way also law is honored in that 


INTERVENTION 


221 


its higher resources are displayed. The brave shep- 
herd who carries the stricken lamb in his bosom is 
acting under a higher law than that which guides the 
storm in its appointed course. He battles with, and, 
so far as the shorn lamb is concerned, vanquishes the 
storm, rescues its victim, wards off its fierce blasts. 

Shorn lambs that wait for tempered winds, together 
with the “foolish ” and “idle shepherds ” who neglect 
to gather them into the “ secure enclosed fold,” cannot 
but perish together ; for no provision has been made 
for the tempering of winds, or for the suspension of 
any of those beneficent laws which govern either the 
moral or the material universe ; no provision has been 
made for the deliverance of those exposed to the 
forces of law, except by means of powers operating 
themselves under law. Intervention may indeed be 
by spiritual or material powers or by a pre-determina- 
tion of natural forces ; for God is free to protect by 
such agencies as he chooses. 

Every different kind of danger manifestly requires 
a different kind of defense. From the tempest we 
need “ a covert from the burning rays of the sun we 
need “ the shadow of a great rock.” To defend us 
from the serpent’s deadly stroke we need one who is 
able to “bruise the serpent’s head” Such an one 
God has raised up. One able to deal with the entire 
aggregate of dangers and evils that threaten our sinful 
race. 

This exact, and clearly ascertainable, universal law 
or rule of deliverance from danger and evil of all kinds, 


222 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


is one that makes short work of all false theories of 
atonement. Every theory of atonement save that which 
regards Christ as our substitute, meeting the full de- 
mands of law, enduring its penalty, making a 
“proper, real and full satisfaction to God’s justice,” is 
ruled out at once as fatally, foolishly defective, delu- 
sive, deceptive. 

How admirably, powerfully yet silently the im- 
mense wheel of the great Corliss engine revolved day 
after day in the Centennial building ! In one of o ur 
great factories where a similar wheel was kept revolv- 
ing day and night, a few weeks ago a lad passing near 
it, by a single misstep, fell against it, was instantly 
hurled sheer across the immense building and was 
taken up moaning, mangled, bleeding, dying. It was, 
it is true, but a single misstep. It was but one transgres- 
sion. W as it any the less severely punished ? The 
universe is filled with just such wheels. It was the 
presence of such a wheel that made Paradise a place of 
infinite danger to our first parents. It was a single 
misstep that brought them, and with them the whole 
race of mankind, in contact with that mighty, that re- 
sistless wheel, which hurled them sheer against the 
dead wall where the good physician finds them all 
mangled, moaning and dying. It is not too much to 
say that every moral being in the universe has ever 
such a wheel right by his side. A single misstep 
brought the angels in contact with it and they were 
hurled beyond the reach of hope into the abyss of 
eternal darkness. In heaven itself these awful wheels 


INTERVENTION 


223 


revolve eternally. Angels and redeemed men are in- 
deed secure in bliss, but their security consists not in 
the absence of exact law, but in their relation to 
Christ. The impossibility of sin in their case, the im- 
possibility of another misstep which should bring them 
in contact with inexorable law, arises not from any im- 
passable barrier between them and the danger. 
Christ upholds them ; Christ ensures that they shall 
“ never fall.” 

The poor lad caught in the great wheel might in- 
deed be spared and saved and healed, but not by any 
discrimination or tenderness on the part of the on- 
moving wheel. Tender hands might have caught 
him ere he was dashed against the deadly wall, or a 
physician of limitless skill and resources might have 
healed and restored the mangled body. But in either 
case law should have had its own free course. In 
either case pure and mere intervention alone could 
save. So is it ever. 

Why will men continue to hope for deliverance and 
relief and escape in the way that God has forever 
closed, while rejecting the one only way open, and 
ever kept open, both in nature and in grace ? 

Can there be law and no danger ? The innocent, 
so called, the innocent — innocent in the fullest sense of 
that term, so far at least as we are able to judge — are 
not absolutely free from danger arising from the oper- 
ation of invariable law, law that does not and cannot 
respect persons. The innocents, if found in the 
place where law is hurling its hail, are in danger, 


224 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


danger that is real, danger that no charm or spell can 
avert. As for moral beings purely innocent, they can- 
not be found in such place, for moral beings purely in- 
nocent must be presumed to be not destitute of wisdom. 
And for what end is wisdom granted them if not that 
they may exercise it continually in keeping themselves 
in harmony with the laws and forces around them ? 
A world where law prevails is a world in which heed- 
ful regard to law is a necessity. The inhabitants of 
such world are safe, not apart from, but on account of, 
their capacity to keep themselves in perfect harmony 
with law, moral and natural. In fact nothing short of 
this is holiness. All law is sacred, as all law is from 
God. Heavenly beings are not merely bound to obey 
what we call moral law ; they are bound to be in har- 
mony with law of all kinds wherewith they are en- 
compassed on every side. Besides it should be remem- 
bered that the distinction we make is one that does 
not really divide law into two separate and independent 
realms. Law, moral and natural, having its source 
in the will of God, is really one. The moral being 
who disregards natural law is not the innocent. As- 
suredly the supposed “ innocents ” who trespass upon 
natural law are not in this world leniently dealt with. 
How was it with the innocent man who a few days 
ago took hold of the knobs of a generator of electric 
light. “ Three men stepped into the electric light 
works in the city of Syracuse. One of them was ob- 
served to stoop over and reach out his hands toward a 
thirty-light dynamo machine. Instantly he was 


INTERVENTION 


225 


drawn close to the generator without a noise and with- 
out uttering a sound. He had unwittingly grasped 
the positive and negative rods, and was dead.” If in 
heaven innocents of that type could be imagined to 
be wandering, who could assure us that even there 
there should never an accident be chronicled ? If in 
the blessed world there be innocents who know not 
how to respect and conform to natural law as well as 
moral, let us not assume that in that good world where 
there must be myriads of holy ones who are not in 
this sense innocents, i. e., who do know how to con- 
form to natural law, some fit guardians should not have 
charge of them. Natural law will not be mocked by 
saint a whit more readily than by sinner. Just be- 
cause it cannot be mocked is it law at all. The “ in- 
nocent ” taking hold of the brass knobs might indeed 
think it had been well if law could have been a re- 
specter of persons. So also he of Babylon, when “ his 
knees smote together ” while the handwriting on the 
wall was interpreted to him — “ Thou art weighed in 
the balances,” — might indeed think it had been well if 
these awfully exact balances had been, for this once, 
manipulated in his favor. But it is time that all, 
whether innocents who are in danger of taking hold 
of brass knobs in any way that brings natural law 
upon them, or mighty monarchs who forget that they 
also are under law to one who is Monarch over all 
monarchs, should learn that law in the universe cannot 
be suspended for their sake. The universe of beings 
created and Uncreated is interested in the reign of 


226 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


law undisturbed. Dismay and pale horror, blank de- 
spair, would prevail were it in one instance demon- 
strated that law either moral or natural was unrelia- 
ble, or could be violated with impunity. 

How there can be absolute and exact dominion of 
law and yet mercy be possible, how God can be “just 
and the justifier of the ungodly,” is precisely the ques- 
tion which revelation, from first to last, is designed to 
solve ; and Revelation solves it by referring us to em- 
blems drawn from nature, assuming that these emblems 
themselves set the truth in a clear light, giving no 
hint that nature is not the image of grace or that “ na- 
ture is silent about mercy.” It has been maintained 
by well-meaning Christian teachers that “ nature gives 
no hint of mercy.” This is said with the view of 
magnifying divine revelation and magnifying the 
grace of God in making a revelation in scripture. 
Nature gives no hint of mercy ? Yes, and No. If by 
mercy is meant snspension of law, No; if by mercy 
is meant deliverance from danger and evil by satis- 
faction of violated law, Yes. And Nature’s No 
and Nature’s Yes are alike emphatic, for both are 
needed, that man may be driven from the false to the 
true hope; for whoso shall devoutly ask of nature 
and interpret aright her answer, shall despair of mercy 
in any other way than by such interposition as shall 
furnish perfect satisfaction of law. The reign of law 
is in no way interfered with, invaded, restricted, or 
modified by the reign of grace. “ Mercy and truth 
meet together.” Grace reigns “ through righteousness” 


INTERVENTION 


227 


that is, not merely without trespassing upon law, but 
in glorious fulfilment of law. There is room and pro- 
vision for grace, for deliverance of the needy, the ex- 
posed, yes, the guilty, yet never in a way that reflects 
upon, or interferes with, law in its serene and absolute 
and undisturbed sway. In all instances of grace, law 
is honored (1st) by its entire force being expended; be- 
ing met (2nd) by intervention of powers or agencies 
under law themselves, and adequate to afford defense 
and deliverance. Grace in this one only way is more 
or less clearly foreshadowed in the whole course of na- 
ture and providence. Grace never at the expense of 
law, grace even in nature honors law. 

“ Oh Jerusalem! Jerusalem ! How often would I 
have gathered thy children together as a hen gathereth 
her chickens under her wings /” If chickens are to be 
spared, defended, protected, it is not by any relenting 
on the part of the hawk pouncing down upon its prey, 
not by any relenting on the part of the pelting sleet 
or hail hurled by the hand of law from out the dark 
storm-cloud, but by timely intervention of an adequate 
protector. This beautiful emblem is lifted forever- 
more into the place of highest honor and is endued 
with marvelous power and pathos, since it was the 
emblem used by him who “ beheld the city and wept 
over it .” God’s divinely provided and divinely re- 
vealed and divinely wrought salvation lies enshrined 
in this emblem ; salvation consistently with the un- 
disturbed reign of law, not by the suspension of law. 
In fact nothing more is necessary as a perfect safe- 


228 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


guard against all defective or heterodox views of atone- 
ment than mere belief in the existence of inviolable 
law ; for they all assume that law in its higher realms 
is pliant, though confessedly not so as we observe its 
operation everywhere around us. 

Law proceeding from God and being the expression 
of his perfections, must not be considered as requiring 
or providing for mere justice, but as providing for and 
requiring the utmost virtue, including mercy itself. 
God who himself shows mercy only in a way consist- 
ent with justice, does by his law require all subjects 
of law to be merciful in a way consistent with the 
strictest j ustice, and the undisturbed reign of law. In- 
deed, it is one of the grandest and most adorable pro- 
visions of infinite wisdom and goodness that law in its 
own nature not only provides for, but requires of all 
who are under law that they, to the extent of their 
ability, bear the burdens of others by assuming their 
place or by substitution. The place which substitu- 
tion in point of fact holds in law among men, and as 
administered by men, has opened the way for the no- 
blest exercise and development of the highest virtues. 
The weak and the strong, the fortunate and the unfor- 
tunate, can alike look up adoringly to God and rejoice 
before Him in this one hope-inspiring provision 
whereby the poor and the helpless and even the guilty 
among men are not only never in this life placed be- 
yond the hope of help from their fellowmen, but never 
beyond hope of help from Him who is more than man. 

The prejudice against substitution as the only way 


INTERVENTION 


229 


of deliverance from the condemnation of law is ex- 
ceedingly prevalent, perhaps universal. The grounds 
of this prejudice are quite as obvious as the fact of its 
existence. It is esteemed humiliating. It is humili- 
ating in the extreme. It robs man at once of all 
grounds of boasting. The pride of man’s heart ever 
prompts him to say : “No one shall be answerable for 
my obligations to law ; no one shall be my substitute, 
or bear any penalty in my behalf.” So intense is this 
pride and self-sufficiency that not a few have declared 
they would rather perish than be under obligations to 
another for deliverance from deserved penalty. In 
fact nearly all the heresies in the history of the Chris- 
tian Church have had their roots in this pride which 
rejects perfect atonement. Clinging to the doctrine of 
atonement, glorying in the cross, the evangelical in all 
the centuries past have scarcely been able to find 
standing room amid the colossal structures of human 
merit. Rome herself has in this respect been outdone 
in modern times. The hosts of errorists who have de- 
parted from the simplicity of the gospel, differ as they 
may, in other respects, agree in glorifying human merit 
and decrying the great atonement. It may be confessed 
at once that salvation by intervention of a substitute 
making atonement, rendering complete satisfaction to 
law in our behalf, is most humiliating. Salvation in 
any other way would not exclude , but include , “ boast- 
ing.” Salvation provided and offered to man in this 
one only way may well teach him the lesson he should 
have learned in Eden, the lesson of his dependence 


230 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


upon God. This way of salvation which the proud 
heart scorns is one that strikes at the very root of 
man’s pride. Salvation, wholly of grace, and by vir- 
tue of a proper, real and full satisfaction rendered to 
justice by another in our stead, none can accept but 
the “poor in spirit,” “ the lowly and contrite in heart.” 
It is humiliating to those who are utterly, hopelessly 
bankrupt that their debts, if paid at all, must be paid 
by a surety. This humiliation is a necessity of the 
case. The bankrupt is not in condition to disdain 
such humiliation. His bankruptcy is a humiliation 
which engulfs this one ; so that his resentment of this 
is alike unseemly and futile. The humiliation in- 
volved in the acceptance of a substitute would be un- 
endurable were this the end of the whole transaction. 
The noble-minded might be commended for saying: 
“We will not consent that any one shall be answerable 
for our debts, whether they be debts to man or to 
God,” were the transaction considered as ending in the 
mere suffering of the innocent instead of the guilty, 
and did the suffering involve in the end ruin, injury 
or injustice, or fail of full reward. 

To refuse a substitute freely offering himself when 
we are hopelessly bankrupt is to say, “ Let our obliga- 
tions remain forever unsatisfied.” Those who object 
to Christ’s atonement seem blind to that which Isaiah 
saw when he “ testified before of the sufferings of 
Christ and the glory that should follow .” To accept 
Christ offering himself is to honor him most of all; to 
reject him is to trample under foot the kindliest pro- 


INTERVENTION 


231 


posal ever made to the needy, is to smite in the face 
the truest friend that ever bent in tenderness of yearn- 
ing pity and love over the perishing. 

Men do not consider that there is absolutely no pos- 
sible way of satisfying conscience in regard to the mat- 
ter of our obligations to law except by the actual dis- 
charge of these obligations. Nor do they carefully 
consider that conscience is quite fully satisfied when an 
obligation is met by a substitute. This is true of debt 
whether to man or to God* In neither case is it possi- 
ble for conscience to bring any accusation against him 
whose debt has been paid — whose obligation to law 
has been met. The conscience that should do this 
would be a conscience quite severed from knowledge. 
What other debt, what other obligation, may be laid 
upon him, by that very transaction which completely 
and forever freed him from this one, is another matter 
and must be considered by itself. There may be a 
debt which not only cannot be paid, but which will 
grow and increase in the eternal ages, a debt of pure 
gratitude, a debt which it shall be our heaven to be 
forever paying in love, praise and service. The objec- 
tor is not willing to be in debt to any one for his 
heaven. He is thinking of a debt never to be paid. 
But the redeemed recognize a debt that is to be joy- 
fully paid. Their very heaven is to consist in the pay- 
ment of this debt ; rather the redeemed are themselves 
the reward of Christ’s work. “ He shall see of the 
travail of his soul and shall be satisfied.” The doc- 
trine of the cross, the doctrine of salvation by one 


232 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


who came into our exact place and became answerable 
for all that was against us, has in all the centuries of 
the Christian era been esteemed foolishness. With 
tireless toil in all the ages have men striven to set 
forth some way of salvation better suited to the pride 
and self-sufficiency of the human heart. Meantime 
the doctrine of the cross, the doctrine of salvation by 
means of the Great Atonement, so far from being over- 
thrown by the perpetual assaults made upon it, rises 
in splendor, glory and power from age to age. It is 
the only doctrine that brings hope to the perishing. 
If in his day Paul could say to the people of the 
world’s metropolis, “ I am not ashamed of the gospel 
of Christ for it is the 'power of God,” surely we, who 
have spread before us the proofs of this declaration in 
all the glorious triumphs of the gospel, in all the cen- 
turies of the Christian era, may glory only in the 
cross. I know that there is yet a lively brood of phil- 
osophers who are fond of perching themselves upon 
lofty pinnacles from which they may look down with 
scorn upon the millions of loyal followers of Christ 
who unite in saying, Christ “ did make a proper, real 
and full satisfaction,” or 

“ Jesus paid it all, 

All to him I owe.” 

I know that neither a Pascal, a Newton nor an Ed- 
wards could escape the measureless condecension of 
these philosophers if he at all commit himself to the 
humble faith which the people so gladly accept. But 
the time is coming and now is when philosophers must 


INTERVENTION 


233 


look fairly and fully at the common-places of Chris- 
tian doctrine. The day for contemptuous dismissal of 
Christian doctrine as foolishness is now past ; 
Christian apologists now meet men on the plane of 
unquestioned facts. The battle all along the line is 
no longer in the clouds, but on the level plain of every 
day observation and under the brightness of the noon- 
day of scientific light. 

The ground of objection to the miracles of scrip- 
ture, as well as to the theory of redemption generally 
accepted by the Christian world, has been that they 
imply the suspension of law. Many of the most emi- 
nent and honored of the defenders of the faith agree 
with the declaration of Dr.,McCosh when he says mir- 
acles are not against nature except as one of the forces 
of nature may be against another, as water extin- 
guishes fire. Upon careful consideration it will be 
found that the majority of recorded miracles not only 
admit of this interpretation, but absolutely require it. 
The inspired writers clearly state, not only the mirac- 
ulous work or deliverance, but state also the means by 
which it was effected. It was a miracle that the lions 
in their den hurt not the prophet Daniel. But this 
miracle consisted, not in any change in that law by 
which hungry lions are impelled to satisfy their crav- 
ings, but in the intervention of angels abundantly able 
to restrain the lions. And in many instances in which 
there is not the direct assertion of intervention it is 
implied. It is thus fully established that miracles true 
and proper do not necessarily imply the suspension of 


234 


ATONEMENT AND LAW 


law. It is then a perfectly legitimate and logical de- 
duction that in those recorded miracles in which there 
is no allusion to the means by which they were 
wrought, we not only may, but we mmst, assume that 
they were effected by intervention and by adequate 
power and not by suspension of law, unless in the na- 
ture of the case no adequate means or forces could possi- 
bly have accomplished the result. We have no right to 
assume that the death of one hundred and eighty-five 
thousand of the Assyrians at the hand of the angel in 
one night was a miracle in any other sense than was 
that of all who fell by the sword of Coeur de Lion in 
the Crusades. The miracle consisted in sending an 
angel fully competent to so great a task. The word 
angel as used in the record of that event, it must be 
remembered, does not exclude the employment of 
many under him as their leader ; nor yet the employ- 
ment of death-dealing agencies of which angels sent 
to do battle must not be assumed to be ignorant. 

This view of miracles so far from detracting from 
their significance really renders them more wonderful 
and affecting as proof at once of the wisdom, power 
and grace of God. It moreover places them in beau- 
tiful harmony and accord with the established order 
and course of nature, providence and redemption. It 
brings to view the otherwise unrevealed resources of 
law. It shows how the beings and forces that are 
themselves under law can be employed in a most mar- 
velous and benevolent way to meet other forces that 
are under law — meet and triumph over them in a way 


INTERVENTION 


235 


that honors and respects the law by which they are 
governed, and at the same time honors and obeys 
law in triumphing over them. It also reveals to us how 
all the triumphs and achievements of virtue, whether 
human or divine, are triumphs not by means of sus- 
pension of law, but triumphs for which law in its own 
nature fully provides, and to which law gives its full 
assent and utmost approval. It farther leads us to re- 
gard with wonder and delight how fully, not only the 
wisdom, the power, the justice and the goodness of 
God, but even the mercy of God, or the infinitude of 
the divine perfections of which his mercy is the ut- 
most expression, find a place in law as law is from 
God and is the declaration of his character. 





IISTDEX 


Atonement 

False theories fore-doomed, 
24. 

A mystery, yet every way 
credible, 131. 

Crucial test of theories of 
atonement, 152. 

Can never be fully estimated 
by mere creatures, 175. 

Axioms 

Not self-existent, 47. 

Not determined by a self-ex- 
istent nature of things, 60. 

Not determined lor but by 
the Creator, 66. 

“Commercial Language” 

Used in Scripture, 157. 

“ So much for so much,” 183. 

Confirmation 

Not attainable by mere crea- 
tures, 81. 

All confirmed by Christ, 82. 

Moral beings not needing 
confirmation imaginary, 83. 

Conscience 

Not a microscopic Bible, 77. 

Not a lawgiver, 78. 

Receives revealed law, 80. 


Satisfied only when law is 
satisfied, 112. 

Indestructible, 114. 

Creatures 

Necessarily Fallible, 83. 

Debt 

Sin as debt, 136. 

Obligation on the person, 138. 

Imputation of legal obliga- 
tion, 139. 

Dispensing Power 

Admitted by some of the or- 
thodox, 148. 

The necessity for Christ’s in- 
tervention removed by this 
admission, 150. 

The occurrence of sin no rea- 
son for dispensing with 
Law, 151. 

Design 

In Nature always assumed 
by Science, 18. 

Eagerly sought for from age 
to age, 62. 

Dominion 

Promised, 94. 

The reward of obedience, 95. 

Attainable by all, 96. 


238 


INDEX 


Emblems 

Abounding in scripture, 21. 

Equivalent 

Equivalent value and equiva- 
lent penalty admitted in 
law, 156. 

Not peculiar to redemption 
by Christ, 160. 

Significance of its admission 
as providing for substitu- 
tion, 163. 

Force 

Always from that which 
lives, 36. 

Gratitude 

“The grounds of our grati- 
tude” to God and to 
Christ, 179. 

“ Individualism ” 

The legitimate fruit of the 
prevalent error that Law 
is implanted in moral be- 
ings, 80. 

Inward Light 

Lauded by skeptics and er- 
rorists, 70. 

Justice 

The same in the highest as in 
the lowest sphere, 158. 

Law 

Natural and Moral from the 
will of God, 33. 

Not apart from God, 68. 

Necessarily revealed, 86. 

No relaxation, 176. 

No barrier to the Divine 
will, 185. 


Christ merely obeyed law, 

211 . 

Leibnitz 

Yiews regarding space and 
duration, 27. 

Microscope 

Its power in revealing vital 
action, 37. 

But lately attained, 38. 

Its field inexhaustible as that 
of the telescope, 68. 

Miracles 

Not by suspension of Law, 
23. 

The Miracle of Redemption, 
29. 

Miracles of scripture, 234. 

Motion 

Observable motion in plants, 
37. 

In and by animal organisms, 
39, 40. 

Motion traceable to man’s 
power of hand and brain, 
41. 

Ocean Steamer 

Its motion due to vital force 
of hand and brain, 41. 

Prayer 

James Renwick’s, 102. 

Reflex influence and Baal’s 
prophets, 103. 

Redemption 

By price, 159. 

By an equivalent, 164. 


INDEX 


239 


Reinstatement 

Ensured by satisfaction of 
law, 145. 

Nothing is satisfaction of law, 
nothing is real atonement 
if it fail to reinstate those 
in whose behalf it is ren- 
dered, 146. 

Relaxation of Law 

Turrettine’s view of the re- 
laxation of law, 24. 

No relaxation of law in ac- 
cepting satisfaction by a 
substitute, 172. 

Relaxation of law inconsist- 
ent with perfect atone- 
ment, 177. 

Right 

Not determined by a self-ex- 
istent nature of things, 50. 

The will of God, 51. 

Righteousness 

Destroyed by one offense, 
117. 

The just penalty, as well as 
natural sequence, of one of- 
fense, 118. 

Righteousness a free gift, 

210 . 

Satisfaction 

Of unrelaxed law, 146. 

The charge that the atone- 
ment of Christ resembles 
too much a commercial 
transaction and the fatal 
concessions made in answer- 
ing this charge, 147. 

Either an entire satisfaction 
of law necessary or none at 
all, 148. 


Sovereignty 

In Redemption as in Crea- 
tion, 25. 

In providing the Saviour, 26. 

Not inconsistent with pre-de- 
termination, 55. 

Substitution 

The importance of the ques- 
tion, Can atonement be 
made by a substitute? 127. 

Theory of relaxation of law 
in admitting Christ as a 
substitute, 128. 

Law in its own nature fully 
satisfied by a substitute, 
128. 

Substitution limited and re- 
stricted in the administra- 
tion of law among men, 
127. 

Justice satisfied by the ac- 
ceptance of a substitute, 
130. 

Similar principles involved in 
Christ’s substitution, 131. 

Satisfaction theory practic- 
ally believed by Christians, 
132. 

Man’s imcompetency a ground 
of false conclusions in re- 
gard to substitution, 137. 

Substitution normal, as op- 
posed to substitution by 
prerogative, a vital dis- 
tinction, 138. 

Suffering 

Involuntary sufferings no sat- 
isfaction of law, 120. 

Permitted in meeting legal 
obligations, 165. 

May involve humiliation, 166. 


240 


INDEX 


No limit fixed by law, 168. 

The innocent alone can suffer 
for the guilty, 169. 

Suretyship 

Perfect involves reinstate- 
ment, 140. 

Constituted by covenant en- 
gagement, 191. 

Constitutes a “legal unit,” 
192. 

Involves imputation of legal 
obligation, 138. 

Imputation of release or 
righteousness, 139. 

These facts overthrow the 
doctrine of indefinite atone- 
ment, 144. 

Reinstatement a part of the 
satisfaction of law, 145. 

Space 

Motion essential to our 
knowledge of it, 34. 

Space not self-existent or in- 
dependent of all being, 61. 

Not a mere condition of ex- 
istence, 65. 


Strategic Position 

Yielded by admitting that 
law may be relaxed or dis- 
pensed with, 149. 

Maintained by adhering to 
the principle that law is 
inviolable, 150. 

Waif 

Endowed with freedom of 
will and responsible to God 
alone, 97. 

Will 

In its nature self-asserting, 

88 . 

This manifest in infancy, 89. 

Appeal to consciousness, 90. 

This an excellence, 93. 

Capable of true tribute to 
the Supreme will, 95. 

Free from invasion by 
seraph or demon, 97. 

Will as power and will as 
commandment, 98. 

Wholly surrendered to the 
divine will yet not en- 
slaved, but left in freedom 
and honor, 101. 





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